Services beat Vidarbha in cliffhanger

Group B

Three runs to win off two balls, with one wicket remaining. That's what the equation had come down to for Vidarbha in their match against Services at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur. Seamer Amrinder Singh struck the crucial blow for Services, getting wicketkeeper Amol Ubarhande stumped off the penultimate ball of the last day, to give them a two-run victory. It was a cruel end for Vidarbha after what had been a spirited fight on the fourth day, not least from the last man out Ubarhande. He had come in with Vidarbha in trouble at 238 for 6 in their chase of 353, and made 39 off 45 balls to get them to within striking distance of an unlikely win. Vidarbha started the day needing 349 more runs to win with nine wickets in hand - a seemingly impossible task considering neither team had scored more than 300 in the match, and Vidarbha's last four totals read 61, 138, 139 and 147. But Ravi Jangid, Himanshu Joshi and Shalabh Shrivastava all got half-centuries for Vidarbha to surprise Services who had actually declared at the end of the third day in search of a victory. Services ran out three of Vidarbha's batsmen and Amrinder and Yashpal Singh got three wickets each to give them their second victory of the season. The win takes Services to second place in the Group B table.

Andhra Pradesh picked up their first win of the season despite a century by Jammu & Kashmir's Parvez Rasool at the Gandhi Memorial Science College Ground in Jammu. Rasool and AP Singh, who scored 54, managed to hold Andhra at bay for 10 overs on the fourth morning, but once P Vijaykumar dismissed Singh, the tail didn't hang around too long and J & K were all out for 252, leaving Andhra plenty of time to chase 130. Andhra captain Syed Sahabuddin rounded off a productive match with a five-for giving him eight wickets for the match to go with his 71 in Andhra's first innings. Venugopal Rao got 54 in Andhra's second as the visitors won by seven wickets.

Maharashtra widened the gap at the top of the Group B table to four, as they picked up three points from their game against Kerala at the Nehru Stadium in Kochi. After three rain-affected days, there was finally a whole day's play, and it was just enough for the Maharashtra bowlers to skittle Kerala out for 221 and take the points for a first-innings lead. After a solid start thanks to opener Abhishek Hegde's 56, Kerala lost three quick wickets to go from 97 for 1 to 128 for 4. Captain Raiphi Gomez and Sreekumar Nair offered some resistance with a 50-run partnership but Kerala lost their last six wickets for 43 runs and couldn't last till stumps. Offspinner Ganesh Gaikwad and seamer Samad Fallah took three wickets each for Maharashtra.

Group A

Goa went above Hyderabad in the Group A table, after taking three points from their match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. The match was destined for a draw after Hyderabad avoided the follow-on on the third day, but Goa secured the first-innings lead after wiping out the hosts' last five wickets for 43 runs on the fourth morning. Offspinner Amit Yadav finished with figures of 4 for 68 for Goa. The visitors had some batting practice for the rest of the last day and opener Vaibhav Naik got an unbeaten half-century.

Group A

Teams	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	Draw	Aban	Pts	Quotient	For	Against
Madhya Pradesh	4	2	0	0	2	0	15	1.953	1924/38	1737/67
Rajasthan	4	2	0	0	2	0	15	1.765	1570/39	1323/58
Goa	4	1	0	0	3	0	11	1.434	2392/52	1829/57
Hyderabad (India)	4	1	1	0	2	0	10	0.803	1345/50	1876/56
Jharkhand	4	1	2	0	1	0	7	0.691	1649/64	1789/48
Tripura	4	0	4	0	0	0	0	0.347	981/80	1307/37

Group B

Teams	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	Draw	Aban	Pts	Quotient	For	Against
Maharashtra	4	2	0	0	2	0	16	1.613	1699/38	1580/57
Services	4	2	0	0	2	0	13	1.197	1708/51	1790/64
Andhra	4	1	0	0	3	0	12	1.282	1764/43	1728/54
Kerala	4	0	0	0	4	0	10	1.455	1441/37	1419/53
Vidarbha	4	0	2	0	2	0	4	0.689	1630/64	1589/43
Jammu & Kashmir	4	0	3	0	1	0	1	0.472	1848/77	1984/39