Shreyas Iyer hit a blazing 147 off 55 balls to help Mumbai defeat Sikkim by 154 runs in their opening match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy in Indore. The Mumbai batsman’s 147 is the highest T20 score by an Indian. He surpassed the record of Rishabh Pant, who had scored unbeaten 128 for Delhi Daredevils.
His effort is also the 12th highest score by any batsman in the T20 cricket history. Cheteshwar Pujara hit an unbeaten 100 in 61 balls, but his knock went in vain as Railways chased down Saurashtra’s 189-run target with five wickets in hand at the Holkar Stadium.
Abhimanyu Easwaran stars in Bengal’s record win
Abhimanyu Easwaran cracked his first Twenty20 century as former champions Bengal secured a record 159-run win over Mizoram in their tournament opener. The 23-year-old smashed five sixes and eight fours en route to his 56-ball 107 as Bengal piled 221/4 after being put in by Mizoram at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack.
Easwaran’s effort was brilliantly complemented by Royal Challengers Bangalore-recruit Prayas Ray Barman as the debutant leg-spinner claimed 4/14 in his Twenty20 debut while Pradipta Pramanik bagged 3/13 as Mizoram folded for 62 in 13 overs to hand Bengal the biggest margin win of the tournament.
Rajasthan stun Tamil Nadu
Skipper Mahipal Lomror with a strokeful unbeaten 78 (52 balls, 6x4, 4x6) starred in Rajasthan’s emphatic 53-run win over Tamil Nadu in Surat.
Sent into bat, Rajasthan recovered well from being reduced 7/2 to register a score of 181/4 with Lomror leading the way and handy contributions from TN Dhillon, Aditya N Garhwal and Chetan Bist. In reply, Tamil Nadu were bowled out for 128 in the final over. Tamil Nadu skipper Ravichandran Ashwin kept the batsmen in check with his clever variations but went wicketless, conceding 26 runs in his quota of four overs.
Lomror put on 51 runs with Chetan Bist and his 81-run stand with Dhillon for the fifth wicket made things difficult for Tamil Nadu.
Brief scores
Saurashtra 188/3 (Cheteshwar Pujara 100*, Robin Uthappa 46, Ashish Yadav 1/30) lost to Railways 190/5 (Mrunal Devdhar 49, PS Singh 40, DA Jadeja 2/27)
Bengal 221/4 in 20 overs (Abhimanyu Easwaran 107*, Shreevats Goswami 55; Taruwar Kohli 2/49) beat Mizoram 62 in 13 overs (Prayas Barman 4/14, Pradipta Pramanik 3/13) by 159 runs.
Rajasthan 181/4 in 20 overs (Mahipal Lomror 78*, TM Dhillon 38*) beat Tamil Nadu 128 in 19.5 overs (Shahrukh Khan 23, SKK Ahmed 3/14, Deepak Chahar 3/30).