Mohammed Shami (3/26) brought out his A-game and Abishek Porel smashed a 48-ball 78 as Bengal brushed Rajasthan aside by seven wickets in Rajkot on Thursday to advance to the knockout stage of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy.
In Monday’s first pre-quarterfinal clash, Bengal will face Chandigarh at the Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru.
Putting Rajasthan into bat in their final group-stage clash which was also a must-win one, Bengal made early inroads with Shami trapping Abhijeet Tomar with just the second ball of the game. Rajasthan were wobbling at 29/3 in the sixth over before a partnership between Kartik Sharma (46) and captain Mahipal Lomror (45) helped stage some sort of a recovery with their 84-run fourth-wicket stand.
Courtesy Shami, Bengal were quick to hurt Rajasthan again with the senior pacer striking twice at the death, cleaning up Shubham Garhwal in his third and dismissing Deepak Chahar in his final over, the game’s 20th over. In between, he also hit Chahar’s helmet.
Shami, it was learnt, will be available in the pre-quarterfinal clash too.
Opener Porel then ensured Shami’s effort didn’t go to waste as he blasted seven boundaries and four maximums as Bengal reached the target with nine balls remaining.
Bhuvi hat-trick
In Mumbai, senior pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar (3/6) registered a hat-trick as Uttar Pradesh (UP) beat Jharkhand by 10 runs to face Andhra next in Monday’s second pre-quarterfinal.
The UP captain dismissed Robin Minz, Bal Krishna and Vivekanand Tiwari off the first three balls of the 17th overto swing the game in histeam’s favour.
Day of records
In other matches, Baroda smashed the highest total in T20 history and Punjab’s Abhishek Sharma slammed a 28-ball hundred, equalling the fastest such knock by an Indian in the format.
Baroda hammered 349/5 against Sikkim in Indore, while Abhishek’s blitzkrieg came against Meghalaya in Rajkot, equalling the record for the fastest hundred by an Indian. Gujarat’s Urvil Patel too has a 28-ball hundred to his credit which also had come during this edition of the tournament, against Tripura.
Abhishek remained not out on 106 off 29 balls as Punjab chased down the 143-run target in just 9.3 overs. He hit 11 sixes and six boundaries in his ballistic innings.
Baroda also hit a record 37 sixes in their mammoth total, the first 300-plus T20 team score by an Indian outfit.
Brief scores: Rajasthan 153/9 in 20 ovs (Kartik Sharma 46; Mohammed Shami 3/26, Shahbaz Ahmed 2/21). Bengal 154/3 in 18.3 ovs (Abishek Porel 78). Bengal won by 7 wickets.
