India Blue middle order batsman Suresh Raina played an outstanding knock of 92 runs and Joginder Sharma 3-30 helped India Blue to register win in their opening games. With some irresponsible batting from Indian Red middle order batsman they lost the match in the last five overs. Earlier India Blue Captain Virendra Sehwag won the toss and elected to bat first. But his team got of to disastrous start by loosing four quick wickets for just 41 runs on the board. However U.P lad Suresh Raina (92 of 100 balls) and Neeraj Patel (35 of 53 balls) kept their cool and batted sensibly to put on 87 runs for the fifth wicket, before Neeraj Patel got out in trying to accelerate the scoring rate. Lower order of India Blue also batted well, Joginder Sharma (27 runs of 33 balls), Amit Mishra (29 of 31 balls) and Ramesh Pawar (21 of 13 balls) to help their team to reach the score of 246/10 in 49.3 overs. The pick of the bowler from India Red was Praveen Kumar who put on an all round performance both with bowl (10-0-42-4) and bat (37 runs of 30 balls). Chasing a comparative total of 247, India Red lost their opener Gautam Gambhir very quickly when he was run out by Virendra Sehwag for nought. However Indian Red skipper Mohammed Kaif (42 runs of 59 balls), though, played sensibly and hit some good strokes but his vigil was ended by Joginder Sharma. India Blue not just kept taking wickets at regular intervals but bowled some disciplined line to always keep the run rate in check. However Mahesh Rawat (47 runs of 64 balls) and Praveen Kumar (37 runs of 30 balls) batted beautifully to help their team to reach closer to the target by putting 62 runs for the sixth wicket. Praveen Kumar batted with aggression but lack of experience shows in his batting when he got out on the bowling of Virendra Sehwag in the process of hitting him for six in successive deliveries. Thereafter, it’s all the way India Blue who finally won the match by 12 runs. Suresh Raina was declared Man of the Match. Match Summary India Blue –246/10 in 49.3 Overs Suresh Raina – 92 Neeraj Patel – 35 Praveen Kumar – 10-0-42-4 Siddharth Trivedi - 10-3-52-3 India Red –234/8 in 50 Overs Mahesh Rawat – 47 Md. Kaif– 42 Joginder Sharma – 10-1-30-3 Amit Mishra- 10-0-40-2 |
