Avinash, Vikash bowl Bihar to victory

Avinash Kumar and Vikash Kumar, who did most of the damage in the Assam first innings, again were among the wickets as Bihar won the East Zone Ranji Trophy match on the fourth and final day at the Keenan stadium in Jamshedpur by 191 runs on Saturday.

Bihar, 327 in their second innings overnight, were all out for 343 with MS Dhoni remaining unbeaten with 68. This left Assam with a victory target of 355. Realistically however the best they could hope to do was to save the match. But with the steady fall of wickets, a comfortable Bihar victory was soon on the horizon. Opener PK Das (30) and skipper SZ Suffri (18) added 41 runs for the second wicket off six overs. But there was precious little substance from the middle order and Assam collapsed to 89 for eight. A complete rout was averted by Sukhbinder Singh (54) and O Singh (20) who added 74 runs for the ninth wicket off 26.4 overs. Sukhbinder Singh faced 98 balls and hit six of them to the ropes. But the chief honours were shared by Avinash Kumar and Vikash Kumar. The former took six for 43 while the latter finished with three for 56. This gave Avinash Kumar a match haul of ten for 117 while Vikash Kumar had match figures of eight for 154.