Punjab to meet Bihar in final

Not unexpectedly, Punjab made it to the title round of the Cooch Behar Trophy in Jamshedpur on Tuesday, by virtue of their first innings lead of 249 runs against Madhya Pradesh at the Telco club ground. Resuming at 296 for two in reply to MP's first innings total of 268, Punjab batted almost the full day and went on to get 517 off 166 overs. Skipper Yuvraj Singh, who was 103 overnight, went on to get 122. Then there were valuable contributions from the other overnight batsman V Mahajan (35), M Dhuper (31) and SP Singh (58). There were several notable partnerships - 77 for the third wicket between Yuvraj and Mahajan; 52 for the fourth wicket between Mahajan and Dhuper; and 55 runs for the sixth wicket between SP Singh and AS Sodhi (17). Even the tail wagged and No 9 Gagandeep Singh (21) and No 10 SK Sanwal (26) added 39 runs for the ninth wicket.