Vijay Hazare Trophy 2015, Day 5, Roundup: Yuvraj Singh's fifty helps Punjab inch closer to quarterfinals

All-rounder Yuvraj Singh scored an excellent half-century against Rajasthan in order to help Punjab get one step closer to the quarterfinals of the 2015 Vijay Hazare Trophy. After winning the toss, Punjab captain Harbhajan Singh put Rajasthan into bat.

Powered by a century by wicketkeeper, Manender Narender Singh, Rajasthan scored 270 in their 50 overs. Brainder Sran picked up four wickets for Punjab. In reply, triple fifties from Jiwanjot Singh, Mandeep Singh and Yuvraj Singh helped Punjab reach their target with more than five overs to spare.

Yuvraj's fifty included ten fours and two sixes, scoring more than 2/3rd of his runs via boundaries. After playing five games, Punjab are on top of Group A and will look to maintain their winning run in their last group stage match against Services on Friday, December 18.

Brief Scores: Punjab (toss) 273/4, 44.4 overs (Yuvraj Singh 78*, Jiwanjot Singh 66, Mandeep Singh 60; Dobal 2/27) beat Rajasthan 270/7, 50 overs (Manender Narender Singh 118, Puneet Yadav 43; Sran 4/60) by six wickets.

Ajinkya Rahane made his first appearance for Mumbai in this year's Vijay Hazare Trophy as Mumbai beat Services convincingly. Services were asked to bat first but were bowled out for only 151 runs in 42.1 overs. Only three Services players reached double figures. Shardul Thakur was the pick of the Mumbai bowlers as he picked up four wickets.

Mumbai reached their target in just over 25 overs, as Rahane and captain Aditya Tare remained unbeaten and saw their team across the finish line. All Mumbai batsmen chipped in well to help their team reach the mediocre target in quick time.

Brief Scores: Mumbai (toss) 156/4, 25.2 overs (Herwadkar 46, Iyer 35; Bloch 2/27) beat Services 151/10, 42.1 overs (Nakul Verma 50, Paliwal 41; Thakur 4/19, Kulkarni 2/22) by six wickets.

Defending champions, Karnataka lost against Jharkhand. Karnataka who were playing without their captain, Vinay Kumar were led by Manish Pandey. MS Dhoni once again failed to perform for Jharkhand as he only got a solitary run as Jharkhand put up a score of 216 after being asked to bat first.

Opener Ishank Jaggi scored a half century to help Jharkhand reach a respectable total. Jagadeesha Suchith picked up four wickets for Karnataka. After restricting Jharkhand to what was seemingly a modest total, Karnataka folded for just 169 runs with Lokesh Rahul top-scoring with 42 runs.

Brief Scores: Jharkhand 216/8, 50 overs (Jaggi 50, Deobrat 47; Suchith 4/35) beat Karnataka 169/10, 45 overs (Rahul 42, Suchith 34; Nadeem 3/15, Sonu Singh /20) by 47 runs.

Maharashtra could not maintain their unbeaten run in this Vijay Hazare Trophy as they fell to a dominating display by Baroda. Maharashtra captain Kedar Jadhav, who scored centuries in the last two matches, could not carry his good run with the bat as scored only 25.

Bhargav Bhatt picked up four wickets for Baroda in great bowling display as they restricted Maharashtra to just 176 in 50 overs. Unbeaten fifties from Aditya Waghmode and Deepak Hooda ensured that Baroda chased down the target with no hiccups.

Brief Scores: Baroda (toss) 177/2, 39.3 overs (Waghmode 77*, Hooda 58*; Joesph 1/30) beat Maharashtra 176/9, 50 overs (Tripathi 46, Khadiwale 36; Bhatt 4/30, Arothe 2/25) by eight wickets.

Details from other games are given below:

Gujarat 259/10, 49.5 overs (Rujul Bhatt 55, Parthiv Patel 45, Kalaria 33; Mishra 3/44) beat Haryana (toss) 231/10, 49.5 overs (Mehta 57, Dagar 53; Kalaria 4/37) by 28 runs.

Andhra (toss) 261/4, 50 overs (Pradeep 102*, Prasanth Kumar 46; Samantray 2/43) beat Odisha 206/10, 48 overs (Sarangi 52, Samantray 44; Siva Kumar 4/37) by 55 runs.

Vidarbha 324/5, 50 overs (Satish 140*, Jitesh Sharma 105; Rana Dutta 2/57) beat Tripura (toss) 166/10, 47.4 overs (Majumder 39; Wakhare 3/29, Karnewar 2/12) by 158 runs.

Hyderabad 271/8, 50 overs (Tanmay Agarwal 83, Vihari 51; Arup Das 3/45) beat Assam (toss) 199/10, 50 overs (Pallavkumar Das 54; Kiran 3/30, Milind 3/44) by 72 runs.

Railways 200/10, 49.4 overs (Karn Sharma 60, Ghosh 36; Raza 4/31, Bandeep Singh 2/19) beat Jammu & Kashmir (toss) 157/10, 43.5 overs (Ian Dev Singh 60; Ashish Yadav 3/28, Karn Sharma 2/24)