Nagpur, June 7 (IANS) Orange Tigers defeated Nagpur Heroz by four wickets in the third match of the Vidarbha Pro T20 League, which was played at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Jamtha on Friday.

After losing the toss and being put into bat first, Tushar Kadu and Siddhesh Wath opened the innings for Nagpur Heroz. Both batters were dismissed cheaply in the innings. While Kadu made two runs off 4 balls, Wath managed to add 4 runs in 10 balls. In 5.2 overs, Nagpur Heroz were down to 18/4.

Skipper Mandar Mahale and Impact Substitute Prabal Chokhande took the onus of building the innings and added 38 runs for the fifth wicket before Mahale was dismissed for 19 runs in 28 balls. Chokhande could add 18 in 22 balls.

Tejas Soni played a sensible knock of 25 runs in 17 balls. But it was Yash Thakur whose quick-fire knock of unbeaten 29* runs in 15 balls helped his team to 126/9 at the end of the 20th over. No other batter could manage to reach the double-figure mark in the innings.

For Orange Tigers, Darshan Nalkande took 2/35 in 4 overs. While Saurabh Dubey (1/31), Kshitij Dahiya (1/4), Akshay Karnewar(1/18), Ganesh Bhagat Bhosale(1/13), Vikram Patel(1/11) and Minar Sahare(1/6) picked one wicket each in the innings.

Chasing a target of 127, skipper Yash Rathod and Rohit Binkar opened the innings for Orange Tigers. Yash was dismissed for just 1 run in 7 balls, and Rohit was joined by Apoorv Wankhade in the middle. Apoorv made a contribution of 11 in 13 balls.

While other batters struggled to make an impact on the innings and the team was down to 75/5 in 10.5 overs, it was Rohit Binkar who single-handedly anchored the game and helped his team clinch a win. He remained unbeaten on 77* of 47 balls. Kshitij Dahiya also made a valuable contribution of 17 runs in 21 balls. They defeated Nagpur Heroz by 4 wickets with 6 balls to spare.

For Nagpur Heroz, A Ingle (2/15) and Yash Thakur(2/25) picked up two wickets each, while Parth Rekhade(1/23) and Tejas Soni(1/30) grabbed one each in the innings.

–IANS

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