A round-up of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy matches on March 29, 2015
ESPNcricinfo staff29-Mar-2015 South Zone A hat-trick from Ashish Reddy helped skittle Goa out for 118 and sent Hyderabad on their way to an eight-wicket win in Kochi. The win also booked Hyderabad’s place in the Super League, as they finished second in the South Zone. Goa, batting first, were held together by a 59-ball 67 from Darshan Misal, but a collapse either side of his knock meant the team only made 118 for 9.Their top order was wrecked by Ashish, who removed Sagun Kamat, Amogh Desai and Rajat Shet off successive deliveries in the first over. Chama Milind then rattled the middle order, picking up three wickets including the crucial scalp of Misal on his way to taking 3 for 22. Hyderabad aced the chase in 14.3 overs, thanks to Tirumalasetti Suman (34), Tanmay Agarwal (31) and Akshath Reddy (39*).Ashwin Hebbar and KV Sasikanth helped Andhra defend 129 against Tamil Nadu at Kochi. The win helped them to the South Zone title. Tamil Nadu fell short by 29 runs with none of their batsmen getting going, with their top score, 28, coming from their No. 11 Rahil Shah.Andhra, who were put in to bat, got off to a patchy start, finding themselves five down for 68 in the 12th over. Their best partnership came for the ninth wicket with Sasikanth adding 36 with Bandaru Ayyappa, helping steer the total to 129. Anthony Dhas and Aswin Crist picked up two wickets each for Tamil Nadu.Tamil Nadu’s chase never found momentum, with only two of their top eight batsmen getting to double figures. Half the side were out with just 39 runs on the board. Hebbar picked up three wickets and Sasikant backed up his quickfire 27 with 2 for 9. Tamil Nadu’s best stand also came for the ninth wicket, with Shah and Crist putting on and unbeaten 57, but it wasn’t enough to see their side home.An incisive bowling performance followed up by an unbeaten half-century from Mayank Agarwal powered Karnataka to a five-wicket win over Kerala in Kochi. Kerala, having been sent in, were restricted to 117 for 5 from their 20 overs. Most of their batsmen made starts, but no one was able to cross 28 as the team struggled to string together a meaningful stand. S Aravind was the pick of Karnataka’s bowlers, ending with figures of 4-0-17-2.Karnataka had little trouble chasing down the total, and got off to a bright start with the openers Agarwal and Pavan Deshpande compiling 57 in 8.2 overs. The visitors suffered a brief slide, losing five wickets for 43 runs, but Agarwal’s 68 not out off 47 balls saw the team home in 15.4 overs. East ZoneJharkand beat Assam by eight wickets in a 11-over-a-side game at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack. Having been put in, Assam made 100 from 11 overs riding mainly on Rishav Das’ 29-ball 50.Jharkand’s left-arm spinners Shabaz Nadeem and Sarfaraz Ashraf picked up two wickets each.Jharkand’s chase suffered an early jolt when Swarupam Purkayastha dismissed Virat Singh for 2 in the third ball of their innings. However, their batsmen kept the momentum going. Ishan Kisan made a 12-ball 28, which included two fours and three sixes, before Ishank Jaggi and Saurabh Tiwary put on an unbeaten 64-run stand to guide Jharkand home with five balls to spare.Laxmi Shukla’s unbeaten 35-ball 47 set up a thrilling 1-run win for Bengal against Odisha at the Barabati Stadium. The win proved only a consolation for Bengal, who didn’t make the knockouts since Jharkhand moved above them with their win over Assam. Odisha were already through.Having chosen to bat, Bengal made a strong total of 168 for 6, thanks to Wriddhiman Saha’s 15-ball 33 at the top of the order, Shukla’s fireworks at No. 6, and twenties from Manoj Tiwary and Sudip Chatterjee. Govinda Podder’s 28-ball 36 kept Odisha in the hunt, but they were well behind the asking rate when he was dismissed in the 16th over, and needed 63 to win off 30 balls with five wickets in hand. Abhilash Mallick (16 off 12), Deepak Behera (21 off 10) and Suryakant Pradhan (24 off 9) kept their hopes alive, but they fell agonisingly short, and didn’t do their cause any good with three run-outs near the end of their innings. Central ZonePuneet Yadav’s 43-ball 48 held a faltering Rajasthan innings together and steered them to a total of 133, which proved enough for them to beat Vidarbha by 11 runs and go through to the knockouts with 12 points from four games.Batting first, Rajasthan were reduced to 57 for 5 by Vidarbha’s new-ball pair of Shrikant Wagh and Ravikumar Thakur, before Puneet staged their recovery with partnerships of 30 and 42 with Rajesh Bishnoi and Chandrapal Singh for the sixth and seventh wickets. Vidarbha ran through the lower order, with Wagh finishing with four wickets and Thakur with three, as Rajasthan lost their last four wickets for four runs.Vidarbha’s chase began solidly, with Himanshu Joshi and the debutant Aditya Shanware adding 56 for the first wicket, but their innings stalled thereafter, with four wickets going down for 24 runs, and the legspinner Aditya Garhwal sucker-punching them with the wickets of S Badrinath and Ravi Jangid off successive balls. When Jangid was dismissed, Vidarbha needed 54 from 37 balls, with five wickets in hand, but they could only manage 42.A three-wicket haul from the medium-pacer ACP Mishra and a 35-ball 42 from Vivek Singh were the cornerstones behind Railways’ six-wicket victory against Uttar Pradesh in Indore. However, the result did little to help either team, with both failing to reach the Super League.UP, choosing to bat, failed to produce any significant partnership, as they were pegged back by blows at regular intervals from Mishra (3 for 17) and Karn Sharma (2 for 23). Piyush Chawla slammed 44 off 36 balls, but he was the only player to make more than 22 as UP were kept to 138 for 8. Asad Pathan and Vivek made a strong start to the chase, adding 57 in 6.1 overs, before handy twenties from Faiz Ahmed (25) and Rongsen Jonathan (20*) guided Railways home in 18.1 overs.