NEW DELHI: India hopeful Venkatesh Iyer smashed an unbeaten 41-ball-50 and also took two wickets to send across a strong message to the national selectors during Madhya Pradesh's seven-wicket win against Railways in a Mushtaq Ali T20 Group D match on Friday.
Courtesy Venkatesh and fellow national team contender Avesh Khan (3/23), MP had a walk in the park by first restricting Railways to 97 for 9 in 20 overs and then surpassing the paltry target in 13.5 overs.
Both Venkatesh and Avesh, who were stars for their respective franchises KKR and Delhi Capitals, were simply way above par for the opposition.
Venkatesh (2/20 in 3 overs) came in as one-change in the third over itself and used his variations well to complement Avesh as Railways were four down within the Powerplay and never recovered.
The chase was never a difficult one as Iyer hit three fours and two sixes scoring of half of the runs in the chase. Having excelled in IPL, Iyer was at his dominant best as none of the Railways bowlers led by former India leg-spinner Karn Sharma could pose any serious threat.
Iyer and Avesh are in serious contention to make the T20 squad for the New Zealand series.
It is also learnt that BCCI has created a pool of players for South Africa tour which has six white ball games and Iyer's name figures in that list.
In other games of the group, Kerala beat Bihar by seven wickets while Assam shocked Gujarat by seven wickets. PTI
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