7:37 PM IST and Local Time | In the battle between the two royal biryanis, it's the Hyderabadi Biryani that edges past Lucknow Biryani. Jokes apart!! Hyderabad beat Uttar Pradesh by three wickets and 17 balls remaining. They leapfrog UP with three wins in as many games and twelve points in their pocket. Hyderabad moves to the second spot in the Elite Group B.
Arriving for the chase, Tanmay Agarwal and Aman Rao offered a blistering start with the bat, gathering 34 runs at ten runs per over. However, a wicket fell in consecutive overs during the second half of the powerplay, albeit Hyderabad fetched 62 inside the restriction phase. Subsequently, Tanmay Agarwal kept the scoreboard moving rapidly, with a flurry of boundaries, before Vipraj Nigam's shrewd bowling got the better of him in the 9th over. HK Simha, Tanay Thyagarajan followed suit before Prashant Veer turned the game on its head by extracting a couple of wickets on back-to-back balls, leaving Hyderabad stranded at 107/7 in 14 overs. Despite tight bowling from UP, and not giving away easy runs, UP managed to eke out the remainder of the runs and chase the paltry target with no further hiccups.
In an attempt to continue their good form in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Hyderabad won the toss and elected to field first. Their pacers bowled tight and extracted a couple of wickets inside the 42-run powerplay. The Uttar Pradesh middle order faltered during the middle overs as Sameer Rizvi and Rinku Singh failed to sparkle. With a ball left in the twelfth over, their score read 85/5. Subsequently, a collapse followed the Hyderabadi side cleared the clutter, curbing them for 127 with four balls left.