Bengal beat Jharkhand by five wickets in Syed Mushtaq Ali

Bengal ended their Syed Mushtaq Ali Eastern Zone Twenty20 cricket tournament campaign on a high as they defeated Jharkahnd by five wickets at Eden Gardens here on Sunday.

Replying to Jharkhand's 177/6, hosts had Sreevats Goswami to thank once again as the dimunitive southpaw struck a fluent 81 off just 53 balls to steer his side to victory.

Abhishek Raman (37) and Pramod Chandila (37) played cameos as Bengal won by five wickets with five balls to spare.

Earlier, Saurabh Tiwary (44) and Virat Singh (42) helped post a decent 177 with Bengal pacer Ashok Dinda returning figures of 2/28.

In the other East Zone match at the Eden, Pallavkumar Das' 51 helped Assam record a win over Odisha who put up 143/7 on the board.

Biplab Samatray (50) scored a half century for Odisha but leg-spinner Amit Verma bowled well for his 3/19 to restrict his rivals.

In another Central Zone tie played in Jaipur, Ambati Rayudu's Vidarbha scripted a four-wicket win over Praveen Kumar's Uttar Pradesh.

Eklavya Dwivedi (61) helped Uttar Pradesh post 169/4 batting first with the help of Akshdeep Nath who was unbeaten at 56.

But Vidarbha had other plans despite losing wickets at regular intervals as a seventh-wicket partnership between Apoorv Wankhade (27) and Shrikant Wagh (14) proved to be decisive in the end.

There were contributions from Rayudu (37) and Ganesh Satish (33) also.

In the other Jaipur game, Rajasthan rode on promising top-order batsman Mahipal Lomror's 65 to win handsomely over the Railways by 21 runs.

Wicketkeeper batsman Dishant Yagnik notched up 60 too as the Railways bowlers struggled to contain the hosts despite Manjeet Singh (3/16) and Amit Mishra (3/30) picking up wickets.

Saurabh Wakaskar played well for his 55 for the Railways but veteran Pankaj Singh bowled economically giving away just 18 runs in his four overs to put a spanner on the Railways' works.

--IANS

dm/gau/vt