Tiwary, Virat help East thrash North in Mushtaq Ali T20 tourney

Mumbai, Feb 16 (CRICKETNMORE): Skipper Manoj Tiwary and young opener Virat Singh's unbeaten century stand helped East Zone thrash a star-studded North by eight wickets in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Twenty20 cricket tie at the Wankhede Stadium here on Thursday.

Chasing a modest 160, Tiwary (75 not out) and Virat (74 not out) overcame the early loss of opener Shreevats Goswami (0) and Ishank Jaggi (7) to guide East to a comfortable win with an undefeated 149-run third wicket stand.

Tiwary was the more destructive of the two with the Bengal right-hander consuming only 43 balls for his knock, laced with five boundaries and as many sixes while Virat took 48 balls and hit nine fours and two sixes.

The duo joined forced with the East zone struggling at 13/2 after pacers Pradeep Sangwan and Umar Nazir packed back Goswami and Jaggi cheaply.

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Earlier, North rode on Punjab southpaw Yuvraj Singh's 24-ball 38 and cameos from Sangwan (21), Shikhar Dhawan (20), Gautam Gambhir (20) and Unmukt Chand (20) to post 159/9 after being sent into bat.

For East Zone, left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha returned with figures of 3/33 while Sayan Ghosh, Pritam Das and Amit Verma took two wickets apiece.

Brief Scores: North Zone 159/9 (Yuvraj Singh 38, Pradeep Sangwan 21, Pragyan Ojha 3/33, Amit Verma 2/18) lost to East Zone (Manoj Tiwary 75 not out, Virat Singh 74 not ou, Pradeep Sangwan 1/26) by 8 wickets.