Duleep Trophy | Kuldeep Yadav’s six-for helps India Red defeat India Green

Brief Scores: India Red 161 and 486 all out in 116.5 overs (Mukund 169, Chatterjee 114; Gopal 5/58) beat India Green 151 and 277 all out in 56.2 overs (Raina 90, Uthappa 72; Yadav 6/88) by 219 runs.

Needing just three wickets to wrap up the match, India Red skipper Yuvraj Singh started the day with Kuldeep Yadav and Nathu Singh in a bid to quickly finish the match. With an improbable target of 497 in front of him, India Green skipper Suresh Raina went after the bowlers and smashed Kuldeep for three boundaries in the 49th over. Raina also brought up his fifty and looked in good groove in the middle, but just like the first innings, Nathu Singh removed Dinda to open one end. Dinda went after a short ball from Nathu Singh and lobbed it to mid-on to give Ishwar Pandey an easy catch.

But, Raina continued his aggressive knock and looked on course for a century, but Kuldeep Yadav struck to remove the skipper for 90. Raina tried to hit Kuldeep out of the ground only to give Nathu Singh an easy catch at mid-off. Akshay Wakhare finished off the match two balls later by removing Pragyan Ojha to give India Red a 219-run victory.

Abhinav Mukund, who scored 77 and 169 in the match for India Red, won the Man of the Match Award. India Red will now face Gautam Gambhir’s India Blue in the second match of the tournament, which is played under lights with the pink ball, on August 29 at Greater Noida.