Comfortable victory for Punjab over Himachal

Chasing a paltry 94 runs for a win, Punjab took less than two hours to complete the formalities and cruised to 97 for two in 29.4 overs. Vishwas Bhalla (36) guided the team to victory. For Himachal Pradesh, Kuldeep Diwan (2/16) got both the Punjab wickets.

Bhalla and Ravi Inder Singh (32) gave the hosts a strong start, adding 58 runs for the opening stand before Diwan came up with double strikes. The left-arm spinner first castled Ravi Inder and then trapped Uday Kaul (12) to reduce Punjab to 80 for two.

Brief scores: Group B: At Delhi: Saurashtra: 328 all out and 181/7 in 49 overs (Chirag Pathak 43, Shitanshu Kotak 32, Cheteshwar Pujara 29, Jaydev Shah 35; Pradeep Sangwan 2-41, Parvinder Awana 2-29, Pawan Suyal 2-39) vs Delhi (overnight 262/7): 383 all out in 120 overs (Ankur Julka 36, Aditya Jain 38, Virat Kohli 39, Rajat Bhatia 33, Puneet Bisht 120, Pradeep Sangwan 57; Sandeep Jobanputra Sandeep Maniar 2-75, Jayesh Odedra 6-92, Ravindra Jadeja 2-35).

Group A: At Chandigarh: Himachal Pradesh: 197 and 82 lt to Punjab: 186 and 97/2 in 29.4 overs (Vishwas Bhalla 36 n.o., Ravi Inder Singh 32; Kuldeep Diwan 2-16).
At Valsad: Gujarat: 91 and 139/2 in 66 overs (Jay Desai 76, Niraj Patel 40 n.o.) vs Railways (O/n 327/5 in 121 overs): 391 all out in 142.3 overs (Yere Goud 79, Marripuri Suresh 66; Siddharth Trivedi 2-53, Mehul Patel 2-73, Silil Yadav 3-149, Timil Patel 2-47).
At Hyderabad: Hyderabad: 266 and 63/1 in 27 overs (Rushi Raj 29) vs Mumbai (O/n: 198/1 in 67 overs): 521/2 decl. in 128 overs (Sahil Kukreja 122, Ajinkya Rahane 265 n.o., Wasim Jaffer 107 n.o.; Munagala Praneet Arjun 2-91).

At Pune: Maharashtra: 292 and 338/9 decl. in 113 overs (Harshad Khadiwale 54, Sangram Dilip Atitkar 95, Kedar Jadhav 36, Ankit Bawne 45, Rohit Motwani 26, Digambar Waghmare 30; Rudra Pratap Singh 2-71, Piyush Chawla 5-73) vs Uttar Pradesh: 208 and 41/0  in 5.0 overs.

At Sambalpur: Tamil Nadu: 361 and 62/0 in 17 overs (S Anirudha 40 n.o.) vs Orissa (O/n: 173/1 in 66 overs): 327 in 137 overs (Shiv Sunder Das 119, Niranjan Behera 95; Chandrasekar Ganapathy 3-25, Aushik Srinivas 3-53, Yo Mahesh 2-56).