Odisha sneak through to knockouts on net run-rate

Odisha sneaked through to the knockouts of the Vijay Hazare Trophy despite faltering in their last league match against Jharkhand. The result meant their was a three-way tie on head-to-head between three teams as Assam had beaten Jharkhand and Odisha had beaten Assam. Odisha, which had a better run-rate compared to the other two, joined Bengal as the second team from East Zone to qualify.

Odisha chose to bowl and had Jharkhand in trouble at the 20-over mark after picking up three quick wickets. Jharkhand had made a strong opening but those quick strikes meant their run-rate slowed down too. However, Virat Singh and Kumar Deobrat added 130 runs for the fourth wicket, both hitting half-centuries, to revive Jharkhand. A late flourish from Ishank Jaggi, who scored unbeaten 47 off 19 balls, and Shahbaz Nadeem lifted the team to 280.

Rahul Shukla struck twice in the first 10 overs to remove the Odisha openers while Jaskaran Singh and Rituraj Singh picked up a wicket each to reduce them to 67 for 4. Biplab Samantray and Abhilash Mallick scored fighting fifties but the team lost quick wickets towards the end to be bowled out in 46.5 overs.

Bengal extended their unbeaten run in this year's Vijay Hazare Trophy with an 18-run win against Assam in a high-scoring match at the Eden Gardens. Shreevats Goswami hit his second century in four innings to lay the foundation of a strong total after Bengal opted to bat first. Assam's chase was led by a century from Dheeraj Jadhav but it went in vain as the innings ran out of steam towards the end.

Bengal lost an early wicket, but Goswami rode on his good run and added 83 and 142 for the second and the third wickets with Sudip Chatterjee and Manoj Tiwary respectively. By the time he was dismissed, he had added 133 off 135 deliveries to add to the scores of 110*, 24 and 51* from his previous three innings to end up with 318 runs from the knockout stage, the highest in the tournament.

Assam responded with a 118-run stand for the first wicket and were in the chase when they crossed 200 with eight wickets in hand. But Sayan Mondal picked up four wickets to trip up the chase and Assam could only reach 294 by the end of 50 overs.