Punjab gain five points

Patiala: Punjab, by virtue of their 92 runs first innings lead, colleted two more points than Delhi in a drawn three day league match of the North Zone Cooch Behar Trophy at the Dhruv Pandove stadium here on Monday.

On the final day of the match, Delhi resumed their innings at 164 for seven in reply to Punjab's first innings total of 369 and lost the remaining three wickets adding 103 runs. Delhi were all out for 277. Overnight batsman Puru singh (9*) could add only four runs to his individual score before he was run out at 170. Amit Suman joined Pradeep Chawla and the two added 71 runs for the 8th wicket. Chawala was then trapped in front of the wicket by Amit Uniyal at 241. He scored a brillant 68 runs with the help of five hits to the fence. He batted 250 minutes and faced 202 balls.

Amit Suman was the last man dismissed, bowled by Sanjay Dhull. Suman contributed 46 runs with the help of eight boundaries. He batted 163 minutes and faced 111 balls.

For Punjab Sanjay Dhull was the most successful bowler who took three wickets giving away 40 runs while Amit Uniyal and Vivek Mahajan captured two wickets each giving away 63 and 17 runs respectively.

In the remaining 42 overs, Punjab scored 141 runs for the loss of two wickets in their second innings. Munish Sharma and Ravneet Rickey started the proceedings and the former scored 40 runs with the help of two boundaries and a six before he was bowled by Gautam Gambhir at 73. Skipper Yuvraj Singh joined Ricky but he was caught by Chetan Sharma off Rajan Gupta in the next over without opening his account. At draw of stumps, Ricky was unbeaten with 60 with four hits to the ropes. He batted 145 minutes and faced 123 balls. Gaganinder Singh was the other not out batsman with 40 including four boundaries.

With the five points gained from this match, Punjab have now collected 18 points from three games. They still have one match against Himachal Pradesh. Punjab are followed by Delhi who have got 16 points from three matches.