Debutant Balwinder sparkles with a five-for

Sandhu swung the ball both ways right through the day to finish with fine figures of five for 66 and was well-supported by fellow seamer Kshemal Waingankar (3/80), but the hosts failed to tighten the noose around the visitors after having them reeling at 91 for six at lunch at the Wankhede Stadium.

Sharma made 68 in over three hours. He struck five fours and three sixes in his 164-ball knock to help Punjab to a total that looked beyond them when they were 0 for 2 and then 87 for six just before lunch.

At stumps, Mumbai had replied with 22 for no loss with openers Kaustubh Pawar (5) and Praful Waghela (12) at the crease. The dismissal of Punjab’s batting mainstay of the season Mayank Siddhana for 34, caught in the leg trap of off-spinner Ramesh Powar at the stroke of lunch, left only the lower order to rally them around and Bipul did it with support from the tail.

Mumbai also missed the presence of Avishkar Salvi who suffered a side strain after bowling just nine balls and dismissing opener Sarul Kanwar for a duck off the second ball. The lanky medium pacer was off the field for the rest of the day and is unlikely to play any further part in the match, according to Mumbai Cricket Association sources.

Elite Division: Group A: In New Delhi: Saurashtra: 175 all out in 66.2 overs (Sheldon Jackson 39, Jaydev Shah 26, Ravindra Jadeja 28; Arlen Konwar 2-35, Sanjay Bangar 2-19, Ashish Yadav 4-35) vs Railways: 71/8 in 19.5 overs (Mahesh Rawat 31 n.o.; Ravindra Jadeja 6-22, Kamlesh Makvana 2-32).

In Jaipur: Rajasthan: 209/3 in 90 overs (Vineet Saxena 74, Hrishikesh Kanitkar 64, Rashmi Ranjan Parida 25 n.o.) vs Orissa.

Group B: In Surat: Haryana: 207 all out in 74.2 over (R Dewan 27, Sunny Singh 69, A Mishra 25, J Yadav 26; IH Chaudhary 3-50, AM Makda 2-23, MB Patel 4-59) vs Gujarat: 46/1 in 13 overs.

 In Chennai: Tamil Nadu: 294/4 in 90 overs (M Vijay 83, Kaushik Gandhi 80, S Badrinath 32, Dinesh Kaarthick 60 n.o.; Amarjeet Singh 2-79) vs Madhya Pradesh.

In Vadodara: Baroda: 284/9 in 88 overs (Aditya Waghmode 62, Rakesh Solanki 73, Pinal Shah 30, Irfan Pathan 42; Ashok Dinda 5-96, Sourav Ganguly 2-1).

In Mumbai: Punjab: 226 all out in 77.2 overs (Mayank Sidhana 34, Bipul Sharma 68; Balwinder Sandhu 5-66, Kshemal Waingankar 3-80) vs Mumbai: 22/0 in 10 overs.

Plate League (semifinals): In Nagpur: Vidarbha: 225/5 in 90 overs (Shiv Sunder Das 64, Shalabh Shrivastava 83, Hemang Badani 40; Pagadala Naidu 2-47) vs Hyderabad.
In Pune: Maharashtra: 232/4 in 91 overs (Sangram Dilip Atitkar 40, Nikhil Paradkar 80, Ankit Bawne 56 n.o.) vs Himachal Pradesh.