SHILLONG, Jan 19: Meghalaya moved to fourth place in the plate group of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament with an eight-wicket victory over Sikkim in Chennai today.
Meghalaya won the toss for the first time and elected to field, restricting Sikkim to 111/5 in 20 overs before chasing this down for the loss of just two wickets in 17.3 overs.
Their third win from five games took Meghalaya to fourth in the points table after Nagaland defeated Manipur. Meghalaya have 12 points now compared to Manipur’s eight.
Varun Sood stood out for Sikkim, finishing unbeaten on 60 but the Meghalaya bowlers dealt with the other batsmen around him, with Sanjay Yadav taking 2/24 to return the best figures for the team.
Dippu Sangma, who missed out on the last game, came back with 1/9, while Chengkam Sangma (1/12) and Akash Kumar Choudhary (1/26) also claimed a scalp each.
The chase started well enough, with Rohit Shah and Ravi Teja putting on 48 for the first wicket.
Teja fell for 14 but Shah went on to carve out 38 in the company of Punit Bisht, who clobbered the Sikkim bowling for 41 not out off 27 deliveries.
Shah fell in the 13th over and Yadav joined Bisht out in the middle and finished on 11 not out as Meghalaya made 112/2 with 15 balls to spare.
Although there are eight teams in the plate group, each team played five matches each. Meghalaya thus finish the tournament with three wins and two defeats.
Bihar registered their fifth win on the trot, defeating Mizoram by six wickets in their final Plate group match to enter the knockout phase of the tournament.
Brief Scores
Sikkim
111/5 (20 overs)
(Varun Sood 60, Mandup Bhutia 19; Sanjay Yadav 2/24, Dippu Sangma 1/9)
Meghalaya
112/2
(Punit Bisht 41*, Rohit Shah 38; Nitesh Gupta 1/17)