Washington Sundar's all-round effort and Sanjay Yadav's 32-ball 52 helped Tamil Nadu register a five-wicket win over Uttar Pradesh in a Super League encounter in Kolkata. Uttar Pradesh captain Suresh Raina's 41-ball 61 proved in vain as Tamil Nadu chased down 163 with four balls to spare. Raina's half-century came a day after he scored an unbeaten 126 against Bengal.
Electing to bat, Uttar Pradesh powered away to a strong start despite losing opener Samarth Singh in the third over. Raina and Shivam Chaudhary (38 off 33 balls) put on 70 for the second wicket in 8.1 overs. After Chaudhary's dismissal, Raina and Akshdeep Nath, the other hero from Uttar Pradesh's win over Bengal, raised 53 runs. By the time Sundar struck to remove Raina, the left-hand batsman had finished with seven fours and a six. Nath remained unbeaten on 38 off 28 balls even as Sundar finished with figures of 2 for 32. Tamil Nadu captain Vijay Shankar and legspinner M Ashwin, who is expected to be on IPL franchises' wishlists, took a wicket each.
Sundar (33 off 30) and Bharath Shankar (30 off 19) got Tamil Nadu off to a brisk start in the chase. With No. 3 Yadav striking at a brisk pace, including two fours and three sixes, and N Jagadeesan scoring an 11-ball 20, Tamil Nadu got home without too much discomfort even as Ankit Rajpoot and Mohsin Khan took two wickets each. Despite a steep reserve price of INR 1.5 crore, Sundar, who made his international debut in the recent home series against Sri Lanka, is expected to be a hot pick at the IPL auction.
