Deodhar Trophy, Gujarat v India B Review: India B advance to the finals

Chirag Gandhi’s unbeaten 77 balls 100 went in vain as Gujarat lost the exhilarating contest with India B at the Green Park, Kanpur. Gandhi was the only shining factor in the Gujarat batting line-up which turned to be a complete letdown today.

Gujarat were set a target of 281 to chase after they put India B to bat first.  India B did have a good start as Mayank Agarwal was dismissed for duck

Unmukt Chand (63 from 70 balls) yet again put up a brilliant batting performance. Shreyas Iyer (17) and Sachin Baby (29) kept played second fiddle to Chand as the India B skipper continued on his merry way. However, at the half way mark of the innings, Chand lost his wicket when he was foxed by a flighted delivery from Santosh Shinde. Suryakumar Yadav (47) narrowly missed his half century when he was dismissed by Mehul Patel attempting a seemingly risky shot. Dinesh Karthik too contributed a significant 28 before Stuart Binny once more assisted in providing stability to the innings with a fighting 41 off 48 deliveries. Tail-enders Karn Sharma (24) and Jayant Yadav(19) added 39 runs in quick time thus ensuring that the Indian B team reached a competitive total of 280/7 in their quota of 50 overs.

Following a steady start, the Gujarat batsman began to falter slowly as they lost early wickets. At one stage they were struggling at 47/3 in 13 overs but a 78 runs partnership between for the 4th wicket between Manpreet Juneja (50 from 49 balls) and Rujul Bhatt (45 from 62 balls) lead the recovery for Gujarat. However, the fighting partnership was brought to an end in the 26th over. Gujarat, however, began to again lose wicket regularly in short interval after the departure of Juneja. The match looked over when the 9th wicket fell at the score of 234. However, there was a major twist in the tale as Gandhi and Hardik Patel tried to fight back with an entertaining 39 runs partnership for the last wicket. But, their efforts were not enough in the end.

The seven-run victory sees India B enter the final of the prestigious Deodhar trophy final. They will face the winner of India A and Gujarat in the final to be played on the 29^th of January at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur.

Brief Scores

India B: 280/7 in 50 overs (Unmukt Chand 63, Mehul Patel 3/69) beat

Gujarat: 273 all out in 49.3 overs (Chirag Gandhi 100*, Dhawal Kulkarni 2/21)