Bhatt and Dahiya set up Gujarat's win over Baroda

AHMEDABAD: Rujul Bhatt is not a regular in the Gujarat line-up, be it four-dayers or one-dayers. But he has time and again proved that he can be a prety dependable bat in the middle order, especially when the team needs someone to hang in there.
In their G-1 Reliance one-day tournament match against Baroda at Motera C ground, Bhatt again got an opprtunity to play an innings of his kind with plenty of overs to be played and plenty of runs to get.And he didn't falter as Bhatt's 78-ball 77 helped Gujarat beat Baroda by four wickets with exactly two overs to spare.
Bhatt got wonderful support from Rohit Dahiya who scored 67 runs from 72 balls. Together they added 96 runs for the sixth wicket and took Gujarat closer to victory.
When Dahiya joined Bhatt in the middle Gujarat were 144 for the loss of five wickets, still needing 147 more runs for victory. But both of them played very sensibly. They were cautious to start with but once they were set, the beautiful drives, cuts and pulls started to flow and there was no stopping Gujarat after that.
Bhatt departed with Gujarat needing 51 more runs for victory. But Jesal Karia (32 from 22 balls) gave good support to Dahiya, the Income-Tax player, who was playing beautifully at the other end and took Gujarat home with plenty to spare.
Gujarat were off to a flying start with Parthiv Patel (47) and Piyush Tanwar (23) adding 62 runs for the first wicket. Manpreet Juneja, who had a roller coaster ride with the bat this season, looked good to carry on but hit one straight to Pawan Kahar fielding on the midwicket fence after scoring just 26.
Among the Baroda bowlers, right-arm leg-spinner Pawan kahar was very impressive during his 4.2 overs spell. He had to drop out due to an injury. But during his spell he showed enough control and courage to bowl a tight line and length and flighted the ball to good effect. Akshar Patel and Himalay Barad both fell to two very beautifully flighted deliveries which they couldn't tackle.
Earlier, Baroda posted 291/6 in their stipulated 50 overs with Kedar Devdhar (130) and Mrunal Devdhar (43) doing the bulk of the scoring. The Devdhar duo put on 128 runs for the first wicket to set the stage for a formidable total.
Kedar's 130 came off 117 balls with 10 boundaries and three sixes. After Mrunal's departure, Kedar added exactly 80 runs for the second wicket with Vishnu Solanki who score 31 runs from 49 balls.
But after that, there was nothing much to write about as the experienced Gujarat bowling tightened their vice-like grip on the inexperienced Baroda middle and lower order. Rakesh Dhruv was the most successful Gujarat bowler picking three wickets for 54 runs. Jaspreet Bumrah, Akshar Patel and Rohit Dahiya bagged one wicket each.