MP qualify for Wills Trophy

Jaipur: Madhya Pradesh defeated Rajasthan by eight wickets in the Central Zone Ranji one day match here yesterday to finish with an all win record and qualify for the Wills Trophy from Central Zone.

MP captain Rajesh Chauhan won the toss and elected to field first on a perfect batting wicket. Rajasthan openers Anshu Jain and Nikhil Dora added 46 runs before the latter was caught behind off Mohd Arif for 18. Rahul Kanwat then played a cameo innings of 33 off 38 balls before he was bowled by Manish Majithia, in trying to late cut an armer. Rahul and Jain added 54 runs for the second wicket. Saket Bhatia, who till last season played for Railways, scored an unbeaten 79 in his first outing for Rajasthan. He and Jain added 79 runs for the third wicket before Jain was run out as a result of some fine fielding by Amay Khurasia. Jain made 72 runs off 128 balls with three boundary hits. In the slog overs Bhatia and Sanjeev added 73 runs before Sanjeev was out for 27 off the last ball of the innings sent down by Rajesh Chauhan. Bhatia remained unbeaten with 79 from 72 balls with four hits to the ropes. Railways finished with 252 for four in 50 overs.

MP started confidently with openers JP Yadav and Rajagopalan puting on 48 runs. Rajagopalan was out for 16, caught at short mid wicket by S.Bhatia off P.Krishna. Yadav and Amay Khurasia added 107 runs for the second wicket off 21.5 overs before the former was bowled by P.Krishna for a well compiled 74 off 109 balls with six boundaries. Khurasia who was going great guns completed his half century in the company of Abbas Ali who also played some fine strokes to complete his half century to steer MP to victory. Khurasia's unbeaten 78 was compiled off 101 balls with the help of four boundaries and a six while Abbas Ali's 58 not out was hit off just 51 balls with the aid of six fours and a six. Their unbroken third wicket partnership realised 99 runs from 16.1 overs.