Himanshu Joshi starred with a 33-ball 56 as Vidarbha held their nerve to beat Railways by two runs in the Central Zone leg of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 Trophy at the Holkar Cricket Stadium here today.
Electing to bat, Vidarbha began disastrously, losing both their openers in 4.2 overs. However, Urvesh Patel (29) and Himanshu Joshi added 71 for the third wicket to launch a recovery.
Urvesh then became Krishnakant Upadhyay's second victim in the 14th over, but Joshi ensured that Vidarbha ended with a competitive 142.
Chasing 143 for a win, Karn Sharma struck an unbeaten 46 off 44 balls to back up twenties from Vivek Singh and Mahesh Rawat, but Railways lower order crumbled under pressure.
With 17 left to get, Rongsen Jonathan, Ashish Yadav and Arnab Nandi fell in a space of seven balls and three runs as Railways came up short. Ravikumar Thakur (2 for 21) and Akshay Wakhare (2 for 35) shared four wickets between them and tripped up the chase.
In another match, a rapid 82 from Naman Ojha powered Madhya Pradesh to a 60-run win over Uttar Pradesh.
Mohnish Mishra, who made 60 in the last game, was bowled by Praveen Kumar for 17 in the fifth over after MP had elected to bat.
However, Naman Ojha put on 60 for the second wicket with Udit Birla and cracked his 10th Twenty20 fifty to offset a middle-order wobble, lifting the hosts to 165. Praveen and Akshdeep Nath took two wickets apiece.
In their run chase, UP were bowled out for 105 after losing their last six wickets for 31 runs. The Saxenas -- Jatin and Jalaj -- shared four wickets between them.
