Unmukt century powers Delhi into final

INDORE: Not everybody learns from experience. For the third match running in the Challenger Trophy, the captain who won the toss inserted the opposition in and lost.

India Red skipper Yusuf Pathan was guilty for the second time as he allowed star-studded Delhi to make the first use of a flat track at the Holkar stadium.

Delhi are not the ones to look a gift horse in the mouth. Led by the upcoming Unmukt Chand's brilliant century and half-centuries from skipper Virat Kohli and Milind Kumar, they ran up a massive 342 for six.

India Red just crumbled under the pressure of the daunting target and collapsed for 230, with left-arm spinner Varun Sood grabbing five wickets and Ashish Nehra four.

With the comprehensive 112-run win, Delhi set up a mouth-watering final against India Blue on Sunday.

It was Unmukt Chand who stole the limelight on a day when the crowds had come to see Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag. He not only outshone his seniors with his superlative knock but also ensured Delhi did not flounder in their attempt to make it to the final, holding one end up with 119 from 131 balls.

All eyes were on Gambhir, who joined the team on Friday night after returning from his county stint with Essex. But he lasted just under an hour, making 20 before top-edging a pull off Abhimanyu Mithun and being caught by the bowler himself.

Scoreboard:

Delhi: G Gambhir c&b Mithun 20, U Chand b Mithun 119, V Kohli st Patel b Nadeem 63, V Sehwag b Nadeem 8, Milind Kumar c Patel b Yadav 57, R Bhatia not out 40, P Bisht c Sandeep Warrier b Mithun 7, Varun Sood not out 5; Extras (lb-7, w-16) 23; TOTAL: (in 50 overs) 342/6; FoW: 1-61, 2-154, 3-168, 4-288, 5-290, 6-311; Bowling: Yadav 9-0-85-1, Sandeep Warrier 9-1-55-0, Mithun 10-0-81-3, Y Pathan 10-0-62-0, S Nadeem 12-1-52-2

India Red: R Uthappa c Milind Kumar b Nehra 7, A Mukund c Nehra b Varun Sood 64, Smit Patel b Nehra 5, K Jadhav c Sehwag b Varun Sood 17, Y Pathan lbw b Varun Sood 0, I Jaggi c Bhatia b Varun Sood 23, Gurkeerat Singh b Varun Sood 83, S Nadeem b Nehra 25, A Mithun c Nehra b Awana 1, U Yadav c&b Nehra 0, S Sandeep Warrier not out 0; Extras (lb-2, w-3) 5; TOTAL: (in 40.1 overs) 230; FoW: 1-26, 2-36, 3-59, 4-59, 5-101, 6-156, 7-213, 8-229, 9-230; Bowling: Nehra 9-0-38-4, Suyal 10-0-59-0, Awana 6.1-1-30-1, Varun Sood 12-1-84-5, Milind Kumar 3-0-17-0

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Shweta Pandey

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