Veteran captain Gautam Gambhir managed to find some form as Delhi recorded their third straight win, beating Madhya Pradesh by four wickets in a group C encounter of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, here on Monday.
Batting first, MP scored 156 for six with skipper Naman Ojha scoring 48 off 42 balls. His innings was studded with four boundaries and two sixes. Pradeep Sangwan with 3/22 was the best bowler for Delhi. In reply, Delhi reached the target with two balls to spare as they now have 12 points from three games. Another win will put them firmly in sight of a quarter-final berth.
Skipper Gautam Gambhir, who has failed for the better part of this season, scored a run-a-ball 38 with three boundaries. He was scratchy to begin with but hung around till the total reached 100.
The ones who got the momentum to shift in Delhi's favour are Nitish Rana, who hammered 28 off 15 balls with two boundaries and two sixes and Milind Kumar, who chipped in with an unbeaten 36 of 26 balls that had four hits to the fence. Pawan Negi once again used his long handle to a great effect as he played a cameo of 17 from 11 balls.
Brief scores
MP: 156/6 (Naman Ojha 48; Sangwan 3/22) lose to Delhi: 160/6 (Gambhir 38; Pandey 2/23) by 4 wickets
Dinda shines in Bengal win
Nagpur: Stand-in captain Ashok Dinda bowled a brilliant 19th over as Bengal pipped Himachal Pradesh by 2 runs in a group A encounter.
Batting first, Bengal posted a 154 for six in 20 overs with Pramod Chandila smashing 70 off 39 balls.
In reply, Bengal bowlers led by Dinda managed to restrict Himachal to 152 for three after 20 overs. Dinda had figures of 4-0-8-0 to show for his efforts.
After 18 overs, Himachal were cruising along at 138 for three after 18 overs as they required 17 off the final two overs. Skipper Dinda gave only two runs off six deliveries as Nikhil Gangta could not dig out four consecutive deliveries bowled in the blockhole.
Needing 15 off the last over, Prashant Chopra (71 no) managed 12 runs off Alok Pratap Singh.
Brief scores
Bengal: 154/6 (Pramod Chandila 70; Pankaj Jaiswal 4/26) beat Himachal Pradesh: 152/3 (Prashant Chopra 71 no, Alok Pratap Singh 2/28) by 2 runs
Elsewhere
Railways: 122/9 (Akshat 28; Stephen 4/15) beat Andhra: 115 (Karan 28; Mali 4/26) by 7 runs
Goa: 132/7 (Asnodkar 24; Datta 2/25) lose to Assam: 133/6 (Das 44; Bandekar 2/16) by 4 wickets
Hyderabad: 131/7 (Vihari 32; RP Singh 3/15) lose to Gujarat: 134/7 (P Patel 70; Sandeep 2/14) by 3 wickets
Haryana: 136/8 lose to Vidarbha: 140/2 by 8 wickets
Saurashtra: 157/7 beat J&K: 84 by 73 runs
Karnataka: 160/6 lose to UP: 161/5 (Gupta 48) by 5 wickets
Services: 127/7 lose to Mumbai: 128/2 by 8 wickets
Rajasthan: 120/9 lose to Jharkhand: 121/2 by 8 wickets
Tripura: 111 lose to Kerala: 113/2 by 8 wickets
Odisha: 183/4 lose to Maharashtra: 184/6 by 4 wickets.