Spinners Jalaj, Jatin and Saransh suffocate Railways

NAGPUR: After a brilliant performance throughout the season, Railways have set the standard for themselves. Unfortunately on Tuesday, they were well below their standards in all the departments.
Their running between the wickets was awful and their batsmen played some poor strokes when there was hardly any need for it. Eventually they ended up scoring only 86 against Madhya Pradesh.
Madhya Pradesh (MP) played out near perfect game and bounced back in style-after losing their first match to inexperienced Rajasthan-to beat Railways by seven wickets in their second league match of the Central Zone Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 tournament at Vidarbha Cricket Association's Civil Lines Stadium.
It was a brave decision to bat first on a wicket, which had something for both pacers and spinners. A dreadful mix-up between Amit Paunikar and his skipper Murali Kartik saw the departure of the latter without facing the ball in the first over.
Rakesh Mishra wasn't sure of his off stump and chose to leave an Amarjeet Singh delivery, which darted in back and uprooted his off stump. Paunikar and Mahesh Rawat were playing well until Paunikar went for a suicidal run to hand over the advantage to MP.
Railways never recovered after that and once in form Rawat was gone trying to up the tempo, MP hardly gave any breathing space to their rivals. The spin trio of Saxena brothers- Jatin (4-0-26-2) and Jalaj (4-0-12-4)-and Saransh Jain (4-1-9-1) suffocated them with some accurate bowling. They bowled slow through the air and got enough purchase off the wicket to share seven wickets among them for only 47 runs in their 12 overs. Karn Sharma played well but nobody was in mood to stay with him at the other end.
MP lost early wickets of skipper Mohnish Mishra, Jalaj Saxena and Naman Ojha but they hardly looked in trouble, thanks to some sensible batting by Harpreet Singh (38*, 29b, 6x4, 1x6) and Udit Birla (29*, 28b, 2x4, 2x6). Railways pacers-Anureet Singh and KK Upadhyaya-were in midst of a good spell.
They weathered early storm and played quietly between 5th and 7th overs, where only 8 runs were scored. They exploded afterwards and went after Railways strike bowler Karn Sharma. The leggie went for 19 runs off his third overs which almost seal the match.
BRIEF SCORES
Railways 86 in 19 overs (Amit Paunikar 22, Mahesh Rawat 22; Karn Sharma 20; Jalaj Saxena 4-12; Jatin Saxena 2-26, Saransh Jain 1-9, Amarjeet Singh 1-5) lost to MP 87 in 11.5 overs (Harpreet Singh 38*, Udit Birla 29*; Anureet Singh 2-17; Karn Sharma 1-34) by seven wickets.