Punjab routs Odisha in Vijay Hazare Trophy as Gurkeerat slams ton

Bhubaneswar/Alur (Karnataka): Gurkeerat Singh Mann's ton became vital as Punjab thrashed Odisha by a huge margin of 86 runs in Group A encounter of Vijay Hazare Trophy one-day cricket tournament at Alur in Karnataka.

Chasing a target of 226 runs in 50 overs, Odisha kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and was bowled out for a paltry total of 139 in 41 overs.

For Odisha, Sheshdeep Patra (26), Arvind Singh (22), Deepak Behera (22)and Anurag Sarangi (20) were unable to capitalise on good starts while others even failed to get double-digit scores apart from skipper Govinda Poddar (13).

For Punjab, Barinder Sran's impressive bowling figures of 4/22 in eight overs proved critical and he got full support from Manpreet Singh Grewal who scalped three wickets.

Being put into bat first, Punjab was in dire straits at one stage with 16/3 on the board. Odisha pacers Deepak Behera and Suryakanta Pradhan combined together to get rid of top-order batsmen Manan Vohra, Shubman Gill and captain Mandeep Singh.

International cricketer Gurkeerat Mann then  tried to carry on the recovery work by stitching partnerships first with Anmolpreet Singh (18) and then with Abhishek Sharma (23) for fourth and fifth wickets, respectively.

Gurkeerat went on to score 106 off 123 balls with help of eight boundaries and three sixes. He received good support from Siddharth Kaul (22) and Barinder Sran (14) lower down the order ensuring a respectable total of  225 in 49.5 overs.

For Odisha, Deepak Behera and Suryakanta Pradhan took three and two wickets, respectively while Biplab Samantaray, Prayas Singh Thakur and Jayanta Behera claimed one each.

Odisha defeated Railways in its first game yesterday and will face Assam in the next game on Sunday.