The impressive run of Odisha in the Vijay Hazare Trophy Tournament ended today when the Biplab Samantray-led team lost to Punjab in the semifinals at Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad. Riding on a half-century each by opener Amitoze Singh and Mandeep Singh, Punjab won by seven wickets and set up the final against Karnataka, who edged out Bengal by six runs in the other semifinal of the day.
Chasing a competitive target of 239, Punjab romped home with nine balls to spare. Amitoze (91, 126b, 8x4, 1x6) and Mandeep (81, 93b, 7x4, 1x6) missed respective century narrowly, but their 167-run partnership for the second set up the stage for a comfortable victory. Taruwar Kohli and Yuvraj Singh capped the win with unbeaten knocks of 35 and 26 respectively.
Earlier, put into bat by Punjab skipper Harbhajan Singh, Odisha compiled 238 for seven. Among leading run-getters, Aravind Singh (89 off 100, 9x4, 1x6) and Natraj Behera (61 off 96, 7x4) hit a half-century each, while Abhilash Mallick (36 off 26, 2x4, 2x6) and Anurag Sarangi (24) made useful contributions.
SCOREBOARD
ODISHA: Paresh Patel c Vohra b Bansal 8, Natraj Behera c Kohli b Harbhajan 61, Anurag Sarangi c Kohli b Baltej 24, Arabind Singh (run out) Kohli 89, Biplab Samantaray st Khera b Yuvraj 6, Abhilash Mallick c Vohra b Kaul 36, Ansuman Gope c Khera b Baltej 5, Suryakant Pradhan (not out) 0, Deepak Behera (not out) 0; Extras (b-1, lb-3, w-4, nb-1) 9
Total (7 wkts; 50 overs) 238
Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-72, 3-111, 4-128, 5-187, 6-234, 7-238
Bowling: Deepak Bansal 8-2-33-1, Siddharth Kaul 10-2-50-1, Baltej Singh 10-0-55-2, Amitoze Singh 4-0-34-0, Harbhajan Singh 10-135-1, Yuvraj Singh 8-0-27-1.
PUNJAB: Amitoze Singh (run out) 91, Manan Vohra lbw Pradhan 4, Mandeep Singh c Samantaray b D Behera 81, Yuvraj Singh (not out) 26, Taruwar Kohli (not out) 35; Extras (lb-2, w-4, nb-1) 7
Total (3 wkts; 48.3 overs) 244
Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-180, 3-180
Bowling: Suryakant Pradhan 8-322-1, Preetamjeet Das 3-0-28-0, Deepak Behera 10-1-53-1, Biplab Samantaray 6-0-36-0, Dhiraj Singh 10-0-43-0, Paresh Patel 10-1-48-0, Anurag Sarangi 1.3-0-12-0.