Dhoni-led Jharkhand qualify for Vijay Hazare Trophy knockout

Kalyani (West Bengal), March 6 (CRICKETNMORE):  Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Jharkhand left it till late but in the end qualified for the knockout stages of the Vijay Hazare Trophy with a six-wicket win over Jammu and Kashmir at the Bengal Cricket Academy ground here on Monday.

The fact that the Services registered a win against Hyderabad helped Jharkhand make the last-eight stage.

In a low-scoring affair, the Services won by five wickets to finish four points adrift of qualification after they first bundled Hyderabad out for just 88. 

The Services attained the target and scored 92/5 in just 20.2 overs to eleminate Hyderabad from the tournament, which started the game at second place.

Coming to Jharkhand's tie, left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem returned best figures of 5/42 to bowl Jammu and Kashmir out for a paltry 184 in 43 overs.

Owais Shah top-scored for Parvez Rasool-led side with a defiant 59 off 106 balls.

In reply, top-order batsman Kumar Deobrat engineered a strokeful 78 off 94 deliveries, his innings laced with five fours and four sixes.

Dhoni put the finishing touches with 19 off 17 balls, hitting two fours and a six.

In-form Saurabh Tiwary also continued in rich vein scoring a run-a-ball 30, tonking two huge sixes.

In other matches, Karnataka, already through, posted a three-wicket win over Chhattisgarh. 

Elsewhere, Group A toppers Vidarbha ended their engagements in emphatic fashion by thrashing Assam by 104 runs. 

Abhishek Chaurasia took six wickets to fold Assam out for just 169 after Vidharbha had put up 273.

In another match, Haryana left already qualified Baroda searching for cover with a 85-run win but had to be content with a third place finish in the group.

In the other square up, Odisha won against Yuvraj Singh's Punjab in an inconsequential tie by 69 runs.

Riding skipper Govinda Poddar's 119-ball 120, they sent the entire Punjab team back in the hut for 171 with Dhiraj Singh 5/49 and Rajkishan Patel 3/28 doing the damage with the ball. 

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Delhi, having failed to qualify from Group B, restored some pride with a 112-run win over Uttar Pradesh. Shikhar Dhawan failed again, managing just eight runs.

In a bottom of the group clash, Kerala scored their first victory of the campaign over Himachal Pradesh as Vishnu Vinod scored a 93 which helped them post 297/9 in 50 overs. The Sachin Baby-skippered team won by 43 runs.

Tamil Nadu, already qualified, made mincemeat of lowly Tripura, winning by a massive 262 runs after the Vijay Shankar-led side posted 337/8 in 50 overs.

It was a crunch affair in Group C when Gujarat took on already qualified Bengal in a must-win game for them to stave off challenge from Mumbai.

The Parthiv Patel-led side registered a seven-wicket win with their skipper starring with 88 before he was run out to help Gujarat better Bengal's reasonable target of 168.

Mumbai also won their tie against Goa, who were shot out for 95 but could not overlook Gujarat who had better net run rate. Andhra Pradesh, in an inconsequential affair, beat Rajasthan by eight wickets.

Dhawal Kulkarni of Mumbai took three wickets while Shardul Thakur returned figures of 2/27.