da cassino： Mohali: In a one sided affair, Punjab routed Himachal Pradesh by 178runs in the season’s opening North Zone Ranji Trophy one day leaguematch at the PCA stadium here on Saturday
Rajesh Arora25-Oct-1999Mohali: In a one sided affair, Punjab routed Himachal Pradesh by 178runs in the season’s opening North Zone Ranji Trophy one day leaguematch at the PCA stadium here on Saturday.Himachal skipper Rajiv Nayyar won the toss and elected to field first.His new ball bowlers Shakti Singh and Parveen Sharma bowled accordingto plan. Shakti Singh in particular was very accurate. He accountedfor Sandeep Sharma (15) who while defending a slower delivery snickedto the wicketkeeper. Test discard Navjot Singh Sidhu (3) was alsocaught by the ‘keeper off the bowling of Parveen Sharma.After the fall of these two early wickets, Punjab skipper VikramRathore in company with Reetinder Sodhi played a sensible innings.This pair added 134 runs for the third wicket. Rathore in particularplayed elegant strokes as he hit ten boundaries and a huge six in hisknock of 88 runs which came off 100 balls. While trying to clear thelong off fence, he was caught by Sangram Singh off Ajay Mannu.Reetinder Sodhi also fell soon after when he was caught behind offMannu while trying to cut a short delivery.After Sodhi’s departure, Pankaj Dharmani took charge of scoring runsat will. He placed the ball in the gaps with ease and hit threeboundaries in his knock of 54 runs (61 balls). In the slog overs, AmitSharma (27) and Yuvraj Singh (17*) took the total to 273 in the 50overs. Shakti Singh and Ajay Mannu took two wickets each giving away41 and 48 runs respectively.Chasing a stiff target, Himachal started off well as Rahul Panta hitthree consecutive boundries off Sandeep Sharma in the first over ofthe innings. But Reetinder Sodhi bowled an excellent line and lengthfrom the other end and struck two early blows. He accounted for Panta(12) and Nischal Gaur (5). Both were caught at slip by Rathore. Afterthis there was a steady procession and only Ajay Mannu (16), Ajay Rai(15) and Sangram Singh (14) managed to reach double figures. SpinnersYuvraj and Sarandeep Singh bowled well to claim three wickets each tobundle out Himachal for just 95 runs with 13.4 overs to spare.