India Red captain S Badrinath put the rivals in and unleashed his fiery pace attack which bundled out India Blue for a paltry 84 in 27.1 overs, Patel (4/21), Tyagi (3/20) and Ishant Sharma (2/26) leading the rout. It took India Red just 20.3 overs to cruise to 85 for three.
Dhoni’s side could never recover from Tyagi’s three-wicket burst early in the innings which set the tone of the match.
The first ball of the match saw Tyagi castling Naman Ojha and his third trapped Suresh Kumar as India Blue lost two top-order batsmen without a run on the board.
Dhoni surprisingly promoted Harbhajan Singh (8) to number four, but the offie became Tyagi’s third victim as India Blue slid to 19 for three.
Dhoni (23) decided to counter-attack in the company of Wasim Jaffer (11) and the duo added 30 when the former fell to off-spinner R Ashwin, triggering another collapse as Patel got into the act.
The lanky pacer removed Jaffer and Yusuf Pathan (0) in the same over and returned to get rid of Abhishek Nayar (7) and S Sreesanth (2) in successive overs to reduce India Blue to 74 for eight.
Ishant then polished off the tail, claiming the last two wickets as only three Blue batsmen reached double figures.
India Red got off to a sound start with Shikhar Dhawan (38) and Murali Vijay (12) adding 40 before losing two quick wickets. Harbhajan trapped Vijay and then dismissed Sunny Sohal before removing Dhawan, but it was not enough to change the complexion of the match.
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