Vijay Hazare Trophy: Gurkeerat, Yuvraj star in Punjab win

Punjab rode on half-centuries from Gurkeerat Singh and Yuvraj Singh to beat Railways by three wickets in a Group A clash of the Vijay Hazare Trophy here on Wednesday.

Asked to bat first, Railways produced 246/9 in their allotted 50 overs.

Arindam Ghosh top scored for Railways with a 100-ball 83 which included two boundaries and four sixes.

Yuvraj bagged a couple of wickets for Punjab while Abhishek Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Baltej Singh, Manpreet Gony and Sandeep Sharma bagged a wicket each.

The Punjab chase was off to a slow start as they lost a couple of early wickets before Yuvraj and Manan Vohra produced a 52-run partnership.

Yuvraj scored a run-a-ball 66 with six boundaries and a six before being dismissed by Ashish Yadav.

Gurkeerat then scored an unbeaten 69 off 84 balls and Gony hit a quickfire 46 off 24 balls lower down the order to help Punjab go past the post.

Meanwhile in Group C, defending champions Gujarat defeated Madhya Pradesh by four wickets in Chennai.

Gujarat produced a disciplined bowling effort to restrict Madhya Pradesh to 213/9.

Subham Sharma was the top scorer for Madhya Pradesh with 40 runs.

Ishwar Chaudhary, Ashav Panchal, Rohit Dahiya and Rujul Bhatt clinched two wickets each for Gujarat while Chintan Gaja got one wicket.

Kirit Panchal then scored a 78-ball 53 to spearhead Gujarat's chase. Bhargav Merai (45) also batted well as Gujarat overhauled the target in 43.1 overs.

Among other matches of the day, Bengal beat Rajasthan by two wickets while Haryana got the better of Assam by 53 runs.

Brief scores:

Group A:

Railways: 246/9 in 50 overs (Arindam Ghosh 83; Yuvraj Singh 2/35) vs Punjab: 247/7 in 49.1 overs (Gurkeerat Singh 69 not out, Yuvraj Singh 66; Ashish Yadav 3/41)

Haryana: 306/6 in 49 overs (Shubham Rohilla 118, Nitin Saini 54; Amit Verma 3/47) vs Assam 253/9 in 49 overs (Pritam Das 65 not out, Arun Karthik 60)

Group C:

Madhya Pradesh: 213/9 in 50 overs (Shibham Sharma 40; Ishwar Chaudhary 2/39, Ashav Panchal 2/46, Rohit Dahiya 2/32, Rujul Bhatt 2/44) vs Gujarat: 214/6 in 43.1 overs (Kirit Panchal 53, Bhargav Merai 45; Saransh Jain 2/48).

Rajasthan: 274/9 in 50 overs (Dishat Yagnik 100; Kanishk Seth 4/59) vs Bengal: 275/8 in 50 overs (Sudip Chatterjee 85 not out, Abhimanyu Easwaran 79; Rahul Chahar 3/33, Kamlesh Nagarkoti 3/50).

--IANS

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