FOR the first time in season opening tournament, Vidarbha bowlers got their act together to bundle out a side and that helped the team get past a competitive Madhya Pradesh in their sixth round match of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium Ground C, Rajkot on Thursday.

After the batsmen posted a healthy 180-5, the bowlers complemented well to bowl MP out for 158 in 19.1 overs for a comfortable 22 runs victory.

Electing to bat and after a great start by top three batters, once again big-hitter Jitesh Sharma’s (50*; 21b, 5x4, 3x6) unbeaten knock made all the difference — from respectable to imposing — to the total.

Skipper Akshay Wadkar (44; 43b, 5x4) and deputy Atharva Taide (30; 17b, 5x4) put on 55 in 6.3 overs for the opening wicket. Promoted to number three, Apoorv Wankhade (35; 23b, 3x6) also got going. Shubham Dubey (10; 13b) missed out but Sharma was exceptional with his timing and placements.

MP had a good start to the chase as Ashwin Das and Shubham Sharma took the team to 44 in 4.4 overs. Within 13 runs both got out with Darshan Nalkande (3-23) and Umesh Yadav (3-29) accounting for the batsmen in that order.

MP mainstay Rajat Patidar showed his class in his brief knock of 35 that came from 24 balls and contained three sixes but once Akshay Karnewar had him caught by Aman Mokhade, the other batsmen simply gave up.

Seamer Yash Thakur, who bowled brilliantly at the death to snare four wickets from his last two overs in the last game, picked two wickets. Left-arm spinner got one wicket as the bowlers took ten for the first time.

Later in their day-night game, Uttarakhand thumped Mizoram by 129 runs to jump to second spot on higher net run rate (1.503). Vidarbha (0.830) are placed third but with an equal number of points (16).

To their advantage, Vidarbha will be playing Railways who have three wins and an equal number of losses while Uttarakhand runs into table-toppers Mumbai.