Abishek Porel (170 not out) hit the highest individual score for Bengal in List A cricket, leading his team to a six-wicket win over Delhi on the opening day of the Vijay Hazare Trophy in Hyderabad on Saturday.
With 18 boundaries and seven maximums, the 22-year-old keeper-batter eclipsed Devang Gandhi’s unbeaten 164, which the former national selector had scored against Assam in Agartala in December 2002.
Porel’s unbeaten innings off just 130 balls helped Bengal overhaul Delhi’s 272/7 with as many as 51 balls remaining. Delhi’s bowling attack also featured quicks Ishant Sharma and Navdeep Saini, but none of them could pose any kind of trouble whatsoever for the left-hander.
In Ahmedabad, KL Shrijith’s unbeaten 150 off 101 balls trumped Shreyas Iyer’s fiery 114 as Karnataka etched a seven-wicket win over Mumbai. Courtesy Shrijith, Karnataka chased down a 383-run target with 3.4 overs to spare.
In another game, Anmolpreet Singh (115 off 45 balls) smashed the quickest List A hundred by an Indian, a 35-ball effort, to guide Punjab to a nine-wicket win over Arunachal Pradesh. The innings is also the third fastest List A hundred behind Australia’s Jake-Fraser McGurk (29 balls) and South African AB de Villiers (31 balls).
Brief scores: Delhi 272/7 in 50 ovs (Anuj Rawat 79 n.o.; Mukesh Kumar 4/66). Bengal 274/4 in 41.3 ovs (Abishek Porel 170 n.o.). Bengal won by 6 wkts.
