7:57 PM IST and Local Time: Wow!!! That has been a remarkable turnaround from J&K! They were behind the eight ball at the halfway stage in the chase, but they bounced back strongly!
J&K were put into bat first by Madhya Pradesh. Many batters got starts but none could convert as the Madhya Pradesh bowlers kept on taking wickets at regular intervals. They were struggling at 93-6 in the 15th over. That is when some lower order hits from Yudhvir Singh and Auqib Nabi helped them to a respectable 150 score.
Nabi was the best batter as he notched up 32 off just 21 balls with 3 massive sixes. The pick of the bowlers from MP were the new ball bowlers Tripuresh Singh (3-32) and Arshad Khan (2-36). Shivam Shukla too bowled a decent 2-26 in his 4 overs.
The chase started on an iffy note for the MP side. They were 9/2 in the first 2.2 overs. That is when Harsh Gawli and Harpreet Bhatia joined hands to bring some calm to the storm. They scored 68 together and took the team to 76/2 in 10 overs. They were head of the rate at that moment.
However, the J&K bowlers did not lose hope. They were searching for that breakthrough. Once they found that, they just stormed into the match. Bhatia was dismissed in the 11th over. From 77/2 the MP side stumbled to 86/5 within no time. There were too many dot balls between those wickets and the required rate just shot up all of a sudden.
Venkatesh Iyer and Arshad Khan fought back with some lower order hits and took the score to 124/6. However, that is when Arshad Khan departed and then there was just a collapse till they got all out. The pick of the bowlers for J&K were Auqib Nabi (3-19), Sunil Kumar (3-32) and Lone Nasir Muzaffar (2-14). Eventually the MP side emerged victorious by 13 runs.