Group A

After putting up a decent total of 269 runs, Baroda put up a clinical performance with the ball and didn’t leave any breathing space to Railways as they got the better of them by a huge margin of 180 runs in Bangalore. After winning the toss, Baroda got off to a very good start as their openers added 88 runs for the opening wicket and the pair of Aditya Waghmode and Krunal Pandya followed that up with an 85-run partnership for the second wicket. However, they lost wickets in a heap and squandering away the pole position, they ended up scoring only 269 runs all thanks to a quickfire half-century from skipper Deepak Hooda. 270 was not going to be a heavy task for Railways, but the team put up a disastrous batting performance after Babashafi Pathan initiated the wreckage. Only three batsmen managed to touch double figures and Railways, losing their last six wickets for just 28 runs, were bowled out for 89 to hand Baroda a victory. 

Brief scores: Vidarbha 125 in 36.2 overs (Ganesh Satish 50, Atharva Taide 32; Shreyas Gopal 3-13, Krishnappa Gowtham 3-34) lost to Karnataka 129/4 in 32.3 overs (Kaunain Abbas 35*, Shreyas Gopal 34*; Yash Thakur 3-22) by six wickets.

Although veteran Ganesh Satish gave his all and scored a 50 for Vidarbha, the other batsman's inability to pose any sort of challenge meant Karnataka picked up a comfortable six-wicket win over Vidarbha in their group encounter. After Vinay Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun removed their openers, Shreyas Gopal and Krishnappa Gowtham joined the party and picked up six wickets between them to end the innings at 125. The 126-run target was hunky-dory for Karnataka as they managed to chase it down in 32.3 overs by losing only four wickets. While Kaunain Abbas scored an unbeaten 35 runs, he got excellent support from Shreyas Gopal, who chipped in with a useful 34 runs.

Brief scores: Himachal Pradesh 269/6 in 50 overs (Prashant Chopra 86, Rishi Dhawan 53*; Shivam Dubey 2-41) lost to Mumbai 270/4 in 44.3 overs (Suryakumar Yadav 123*, Shams Mulani 41*; Rishi Dhawan 2-42) by six wickets.

Suryakumar Yadav’s century outshone the valiant effort by Prashant Chopra and Rishi Dhawan as Mumbai beat Himachal Pradesh by six wickets in convincing fashion. Chasing 270 for the win, Mumbai were reduced to 89 for 3 before Yadav came to the crease and formed a partnership with Shivam Dube. After Dube was dismissed for 35, Yadav was not to stop the carnage as he joined Shams Mulani to form a century stand and took Mumbai to win by six wickets. Earlier in the first innings, Himachal openers Priyanshu Khanduri and Prashant Chopra added 100 for the opening stand, and after Khanduri’s dismissal, Chopra was involved in another 50-run partnership with Ankush Bains. However, Chopra’s dismissal was the last nail in the coffin as Himachal reduced to 195 for 5 and it was only a quickfire half-century from Rishi Dhawan which helped them go past 250.