Suyal strikes take Delhi home

Delhi now have 13 points from five matches and are second behind Mumbai, who have already qualified for the quarterfinals with 20 points.

After being bundled out for 239 runs in the first innings, Assam could only manage 291 in their second essay due to some fine seam bowling by Suyal (6/71, match haul of 10/161) and Sumit Narwal (3/79). Barring Dheeraj Jadhav, who scored 122 (251 balls, 15x4) and the diminutive Gokul Sharma (59, 77 balls, 10x4), none of the other batsmen showed stomach for fight. Needing 59 runs for victory, Delhi achieved the target losing three wickets, thus missing a chance to get bonus points. Credit should go to Suyal for his workmanlike effort as he used the second new ball quite effectively, which resulted in Assam losing seven wickets for the addition of only 22 runs. From 269 for three, the Amol Muzumdar-led side were bowled out for 291.

Delhi should blame themselves for not managing a bonus point as Shikhar Dhawan went for an impossible cut shot and was bowled. Once they had lost the first wicket, the bonus point was out of the window, and Delhi settled for a seven-wicket win.

Brief scores: Group A: In Delhi: Delhi: 472 all out in 127.4 overs and 61/3 in 15.3 overs (Unmukt Chand 37 n.o.; Ranjitkumar Mali 2-16) bt Assam: 239 all out in 74 overs and 291 all out in 97 overs (Dheeraj Jadhav 122, Sridharan Sriram 59, Gokul Sharma 56; Sumit Narwal 3-79, Pawan Suyal 6-71). Delhi 5 pts, Assam 0. In Chennai: Tamil Nadu: 132/4 in 41 overs (Abhinav Mukund 41, S Badrinath 33 n.o.; Ashoke Dinda 3-33) drew Bengal. Tamil Nadu 1 pt, Bengal 1. In Rajkot: Railways: 415 all out in 136.1 overs and 107/6 in 47 overs (Faiz Fazal 43 n.o.; Sandip Manian 2-14) drew Saurashtra: 338 all out in 157.1 overs (Sagar Jogiyani 113, Sitanshu Kotak 50, Jaydev Shah 38, Pratik Mehta 35; Anureet Singh 2-67, Jai Prakash Yadav 6-94, Nileshkumar Chauhan 2-42). Railways 3 pts, Saurashtra 1.

Group B: In Bhubaneswar: Punjab: 550/7 decl in 166 overs drew Orissa: 264 all out in 111.2 overs (Natraj Behera 32, Biplab Samantray 33, Subhrajit Sahoo 47, Alok Chandra Sahoo 28, Basanth Mohanty 28 n.o.; Manpreet Singh Gony 4-83, Sarabjit Ladda 4-63) and 177/3 in 58 overs (Paresh Patel 27, Natraj Behera 81, Niranjan Behera 50 n.o.; Karan Goel 2-41). Punjab 3 pts, Orissa 1.