Bengal beat Haryana by 18 runs in 20-20 Championship

Ahmedabad, Apr 16 (UNI) An enterprising knock of 67 runs by middle order batsman Rana Chaudhary helped Bengal beat Haryana by 18 runs in the Twenty20 cricket match at the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium at Motera here today.

Rana scored 67 runs in just 36 balls with the help of as many as five towering sixes and five firmly hit shots to the rope. Besides, Rana, Team India's former captain Saurav Ganguly and middle order batsman Manoj Tiwari made 26 and 40 runs, respectively, to help Bengal score 171 runs in the stipulated 20 overs.

After winning the toss, Bengal had opted to bat, but, barring Rana, Saurav and Manoj, no other batsmen had managed to score double digit runs.

While, chasing the target of 172 runs for victory in 20 overs, Haryana tumbled down for 153 runs in 19.3 overs, losing by 18 runs.

For Haryana, barring the fighting knock of 62 runs from middle order batsman Sachin Rana and 35 runs by Joginder Sharma, no other batsmen displayed any guts in chasing 172 runs for victory.

For Bengal, Ranadeb Bose was most successful bowler with four wickets in 40 runs, while L R Shukla and Saurav Ganguly took two wickets each for 23 and 16 runs, respectively.

Brief Score: Bengal: 171 runs for 7 wkts in 20 overs (Rana Chaudhary 67, Manoj Tiwari 40, Saurag Ganguly 26, Sanjay Badhdav 2 for 31, Jitender Bhilla 2 for 28, Sachin Rana 2 for 42).

Haryana: 153 runs in 19.3 overs (Sachin Rana 62, Joginder Singh 35, Dhruv Singh 16, Sunny Singh 15, Rabadeb Bose 4 for 40, S Ganguly 2 for 16, L R Shukla 2 for 23).

UNI