Yusuf blitz seals fourth win for Baroda

Yusuf Pathan led from the front yet again, smashing an unbeaten 57 off 24 balls to help Baroda breeze through to their fourth win on the trot, after beating Maharashtra by six wickets in Mumbai. Chasing 140, Baroda lost their openers by the fourth over before Rakesh Solanki and Hardik Pandya put them on track with a stand of 49. Maharashtra hit back via Shrikant Mundhe who took two wickets in as many balls but they quickly ceded the advantage to Yusuf who then took control of the chase. Solanki remained unbeaten on 40 as Baroda wrapped it up with 15 balls to spare. Earlier, Maharashtra failed to put on substantial partnerships, with Rahul Tripathi top-scoring with 32 off 34 balls. Harshad Khadiwale and Vijay Zol, who performed well with the bat on Thursday, failed to make an impact.

It was a mismatch at the Wankhede Stadium as Gujarat bundled out Saurashtra for 88 and won by 62 runs under lights. Venugopal Rao's 61 set Gujarat to 150 before Saurashtra stumbled to Rohit Dahiya who took 4 for 10 with his medium pace. Gujarat were given a steady start by their openers Parthiv Patel and Rohit Darbar who added 47 in 8.4 overs. The best partnership was 62 between Rao and Smit Patel for the third wicket. Rao remained unbeaten on 61 off 37 balls with six fours and two sixes. Cheteshwar Pujara failed to make an impact with the bat in the chase, falling for 13 to Dahiya. Dahiya removed the top order, while the spinners Rujul Bhatt and Akshar Patel took two wickets each, cutting through the middle and lower order. No Saurashtra batsman made more than 16 and the innings was wrapped up in the 19th over.

Their respective wins helped Gujarat and Baroda qualify for the second round of the tournament, which starts on April 8.