New Delhi, Nov 5 (Cricket news) India hopeful Venkatesh Iyer smashed an unbeaten 41-ball-50 and also took two wickets to send across a strong message to the national selectors during Madhya Pradesh's seven-wicket win against Railways in a Mushtaq Ali T20 Group D match on Friday.
Courtesy Venkatesh and fellow national team contender Avesh Khan (3/23), MP had a walk in the park by first restricting Railways to 97 for 9 in 20 overs and then surpassing the paltry target in 13.5 overs.
Both Venkatesh and Avesh, who were stars for their respective franchises KKR and Delhi Capitals, were simply way above par for the opposition.
Venkatesh (2/20 in 3 overs) came in as one-change in the third over itself and used his variations well to complement Avesh as Railways were four down within the Powerplay and never recovered.
The chase was never a difficult one as Iyer hit three fours and two sixes scoring of half of the runs in the chase. Having excelled in IPL, Iyer was at his dominant best as none of the Railways bowlers led by former India leg-spinner Karn Sharma could pose any serious threat.
Iyer and Avesh are in serious contention to make the T20 squad for the New Zealand series.
It is also learnt that BCCI has created a pool of players for South Africa tour which has six white ball games and Iyer's name figures in that list.
In other games of the group, Kerala beat Bihar by seven wickets while Assam shocked Gujarat by seven wickets. PTI Brief Scores Railways 97/9 (Avesh Khan 3/23, Venkatesh Iyer 2/20) lost to Madhya Pradesh 100/3 in 13.5 overs (Venkatesh Iyer 50 no off 41 balls) by seven wickets.
Bihar 131/5 in 20 overs (Sakibul Gani 53 off 41 balls, Basil Thampi 3/19) lost to Kerala 132/3 in 14.1 overs(Robin Uthappa retd 57 off 34 balls, Sanju Samson 45 no off 0 balls) by seven wickets.
Gujarat 89 in 19.2 overs (Piyush Chawla 21. Riyan Parag 2/23. Mukhtar Hussaon 3/20) lost to Assam 90/3 (Riyan Parag 20 no off 7 balls) by 7 wickets.
Also Read : Nitish Rana smashes 25-ball-50 as Delhi cruise past Chandigarh
News Source : PTI
