Seamer Basant Mohanty’s immaculate bowling with an impressive match haul of 10 for 85 has enabled Odisha to steer to a win over Punjab team by six wickets. This win facilitated a giant leap towards avoiding the relegation in the Ranji Trophy.

Mohanty, who had grabbed 4/43 in the first innings, again tormented the Punjab batsmen as his 6/42 was primarily responsible for the hosts being bowled out for 141 in their second innings.

He was duly supported by another right-arm seamer Deepak Behera (3/44), who also had an equally impressive match-figures of 7/91 as Odisha now climbed to eighth spot with 14 points and four clear of bottom-placed Saurashtra.

For Punjab, only Yuvraj Singh impressed with a gritty 56 off 113 balls with 10 fours and Gurkeerat Singh Mann with a 45-ball-43 tried to save the situation, whereas all other batsmen had no clue whatsoever about the swinging deliveries from the Mohanty-Behera combo.

Just requiring 126 to win, Odisha batsmen kept their calm and Govinda Poddar anchored the chase to perfection with a well-compiled unbeaten 60 off 137 balls with seven fours and a six. Another left-handed opener Paresh Patel (29) also gave Odisha the start that they needed despite losing other opener Girija Rout cheaply.

After this defeat, Punjab are now in a spot of bother with 19 points from seven games and dropped to fourth place as last year runners-up Maharashtra, who are likely to get a point against Gujarat are now in third place.

Now Punjab are bound to win their last match against Delhi at home in order to assure themselves of a quarter-final berth.

Scorecard: Punjab 167 and 141 (Yuvraj Singh 56, Basant Mohanty 6/42).

Odisha 183 and 127/4 (Govinda Poddar 60 no).

Odisha won by 6 wickets. Points: Odisha 6; Punjab 0.