Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy: Punjab Inch Closer To Knockout Berth With 4th Consecutive Win

Punjab inched closer to a knockout berth with a 10-wicket rout of Jammu and Kashmir in a Group A game of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy here on Saturday, their fourth win in a row.

Shubham Pundir top-scored with 42 to take J&K to 139 for eight in 20 overs.

Punjab made short of the target, cantering to victory in 14.3 overs with openers Simran Singh (59 not out off 42) and Abhishek Sharma (73 not out off 46) sharing an unbeaten 140-run stand.      

 Sharma smashed half a dozen sixes and his opening partner hit four of them.

Senior pacer Siddarth Kaul was the pick of the Punjab bowlers with four wicket for 33 runs in four overs.

In other Group A games, Karnataka defeated Railways for their third win in four games.

A struggling Uttar Pradesh recorded their first win of the tournament with nine-wicket victory over Tripura. Opener Karan Sharma top scored for UP with an unbeaten 68 off 36 balls. Suresh Raina too remained unbeaten with 36 off 23 balls.

Brief Scores:

Jammu and Kashmir 139/8 (Shubham Pundir 42, Qamran Iqbal 27; Siddarth Kaul 4/33) lost to Punjab 140/0 (Abhishek Sharma 73 not out, Smiran Singh 59 not out; Ram Dayal 0/22) by 10 wickets.

Tripura 122/6 (Milind Kumar 48, Manisankar Murasingh 17;Shanu Saini 2/16) lost to Uttar Pradesh 123/1 (Karan Sharma 68 not out, Suresh Raina 36 not out; Ajoy Sarkar 1/29) by nine wickets.

Railways 152/5 (Shivam Chaudhary 48, Pratham Singh 41; Prasidh Krishna 2/25) lost to Karnataka 158/8 (Aniruddha Joshi 64 not out, Devdutt Padikkal 37; Dhrushant Soni 3/28) by two wickets.