Assam captain Riyan Parag has been on song in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2023. Parag has scored seven half-centuries on the trot to break Rajasthan Royals (RR) teammate Devdutt Padikkal’s record of most consecutive fifty in a SMAT edition. With his unbeaten 50, Parag led Assam to an eight-wicket win over Bengal at PCA IS Bindra Stadium, Mohali. His all-round performance helped Assam progress to the SMAT 2023 quarterfinals where they will face Kerala at the same venue on November 2.
After winning the toss, Parag opted to bowl first. After a decent start, Bengal lost both their openers Abhimanyu Easwaran and Abhishek Porel. Skipper Sudip Gharami got out for a single-digit score and Parag got the wicket of Rajkot Singh. He followed it up with the wicket of Shakir Gandhi. More wickets fell and crucial contributions from lower-order batters helped Bengal post a below par score of 138/8.
In the run chase, opener Denish Das fell in the powerplay overs to Mukesh Kumar. Rishav Das departed for a 26-ball 31 in the 10th over to Shahbaz Ahmed. When Parag joined Bishal Roy in the middle, Assam were 57/2 and needed 82 runs from 65 deliveries.
Parag took the attack to the opposition and hit Kaushik Maity for two sixes in an over. Roy followed suit and hit left-arm spinner Shahbaz for a six in the next over. Parag continued the attack while Roy adopted the anchor role. In the 18th over, he reached his half-century from 30 balls. Roy finished the run chase with a boundary. Parag's 31-ball 50 was laced with two fours and four sixes. On the other end, Roy scored 45 runs from 36 balls including six fours and a six.
Parag has not been dismissed cheaply in SMAT 2023 so far. In the eight games of the tournament Assam has played, he could not score a half-century against Odisha where he departed after a 45-run knock.
In the other pre-quarter final clash of the day, Uttar Pradesh beat Gujarat by six wickets with eight balls to spare. After Bhuvneshwar Kumar's three-fer and Mohsin Khan's economical spell to restrict Gujarat to 127/8, Nitish Rana's unbeaten 49-ball 71 helped UP win the game with ease. UP will face Punjab in their quarterfinal clash.
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