Pandya sixathon secures Baroda victory

Allrounder Hardik Pandya slammed eight sixes in his unbeaten 86 as he guided Baroda to a six-wicket win over Vidarbha in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Super League match in Mumbai.

Baroda, who were struggling at 85 for 4 in the 13th over, went into the last five overs of the chase needing 63 runs. Pandya, who had recently struck 34 runs in an over, took charge of the chase, slamming sixes off Ravi Jangid and Ravi Thakur to help Baroda reach the target with an over to spare. Pandya's 43-ball knock - his fifth half-century - is his best in T20 cricket. Pandya was supported by Irfan Pathan (26*), who contributed to the unbeaten 83-run, fifth-wicket partnership.

Earlier Vidarbha were buoyed by Ganesh Satish's 31-ball 54 with supporting knocks from wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma (35) and Apoorv Wankhede (40).

A half-century from Aditya Tare steered Mumbai past a difficult start and took them to a six-wicket win over Kerala at the Wankhede Stadium. Chasing 161, Mumbai were 21 for 2 before Tare and Siddhesh Lad (36) steadied them with a 70-run stand for the third wicket. Tare then added 48 for the fourth wicket with Abhishek Nayar before he fell in the 17th over, having made 71 off 46 balls, with nine fours and a six. With 22 required from the last 19 balls, Nayar saw Mumbai home, finishing unbeaten on 38 off 20 balls.

Sent in to bat, Kerala rode on the back of a 45-ball 69 (7x4, 2x6) from Rohan Prem, and his partnerships of 57 for the second wicket with Sanju Samson (22) and 55 for the third wicket with Sachin Baby (32). But Kerala lost steam towards the end of their innings, scoring only 19 runs off the last 14 balls while losing four wickets.

The 112-run opening partnership between Samarth Singh and Prashant Gupta helped Uttar Pradesh comfortably march over Jharkhand with a nine-wicket victory in a Group B Super League match at Bandra-Kurla Complex ground.

The absence of any stern contest from Jharkhand, with both bat and ball, robbed the match of any excitement forcing a Uttar Pradesh player to remark "arrey, yeh cricket hain? [Oi, is this cricket?]"

Electing to field Uttar Pradesh never faced any pressure as none of the Jharkhand batsmen proved to be threatening.

Jharkhand's hopes rested on the Saurabh Tiwary, whose aggressive batting style had earned him plaudits and big money from franchises few years ago in the IPL. Tiwary showed some glimpses of his old form, hitting a couple of big sixes, but suffered an embarrassing end to his innings. Tiwary charged Suresh Raina, who was bowling his first over and was completely beaten by the flat trajectory and pace of the ball, and was easily stumped.

Jharkand finished on 133, a target that UP's top order chased without fuss with 19 balls to spare.