J&K Under-23 cricket team seem invincible at the moment as they notched up their fourth straight win in the ongoing Under-23 One Day League defeating Punjab by three wickets in a thrilling encounter played at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cricket Stadium, Amtar on Monday.
Having already won three matches out of three played in the event, J&K went into its fourth match against stronger side like Punjab. The match turned out to be a thriller as J&K registered win in last over with only three wickets in hand. Punjab batting first scored 210 runs for the loss of all wickets. In reply, wicket keeping batsman Fazil Rashid played another match winning knock for JK made sure that his team crosses the line in last over with three wickets in hand. Fazil remained unbeaten on 59 along with Auqib Nabi who scored unbeaten 33.
It was clash between two top sides of north zone group. J&K out of three had three wins under their belt and is on top of the table while as Punjab had registered two wins out of three and was second on points table.
Punjab scored 210 runs for the loss of all wickets in 45.2 overs. Paras Sharma took four wickets for J&K while as Akash Sharma and Aman Sharma took two wickets each. Auqib Nabi and Moomin Mansoor took one. For Punjab Karan Kaila scored 59 while as Abhinav Sharma scored 37.
In reply, J&K got off to bad start losing three wickets for the score of 31 runs. After that in middle Ahmad Banday was joined by Haziq Bhat who was playing his first match of the event. The duo played sensibly and brushed off the early hiccups that J&K inning got into. They formed a partnership of 79 runs between them. Banday got out after scoring 59 runs with JK score on 110 runs. Haziq was next to go after scoring 44 with team score on 123 runs.
In came the Fazil Rashid who had played match winning knocks in J&K’s last two matches resumed where from he had left. In his two early match winning knocks he had remained unbeaten and he repeated the feat again by making sure that JK crosses the line. He played superb unbeaten knock of 59 runs while Auqib Nabi remained not out on 33. J&K achieved target in 49.3 overs with three wickets in hand.
It was fourth straight win for J&K in the event and they top points table of North Zone group with 16 points while as Punjab are at second place with 10 points.
