Secunderabad: Yuvraj Singh played a gem of an innings (98 off 83 balls) to help Punjab’s chase of a mammoth 324 and beat Services by three wickets in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, here on Friday. With this win Punjab qualified for the knockout stages of the tournament.

Deciding to bowl, Punjab did not look good for Punjab, as centuries from Nakul Verma (113) and Soumya Swain (101) took Services to 323/7 in the stipulated overs.

However, Punjab, too, were off to a solid start in their chase with openers Pargat Singh (49 off 39 balls) and Jiwanjot Singh (41 off 35) adding 82 runs for the first wicket in 10 overs. Mandeep Singh made 45 off 56 balls, while Mayank Sidhana scored 46 runs off 49 deliveries. But, it was Yuvraj who anchored the chase before skipper Harbhajan Singh (16 not out) and Gitansh Khera (13) took past the target. Yuvraj smashed eight boundaries and four sixes, facing 83 balls.

Brief Scores: Services: 323/7 in 50 overs (N Verma 113, S Swain 101, H Singh 1/41, S Kaul 1/50); Punjab: 325/7 in 49 overs (Y Singh 98, P Singh 49, M Sidhana 46, R Negi 3/51, K Passi 2/66)

HP: 295/5 in 50 overs. (R Dhawan 117 not out, R Bisht 84; C Sakure 1/37); MP: 254 all out in 46.1 overs. (V Iyer 57, P Sahani 42; P Jaiswal 6/40).
Karnataka: 349/5 in 50 overs (C Gautam 109 no, M Pandey 79, Z Sofi 2/58, W Raza 2/66); J&K: 142 all out in 27.3 overs (Bandeep Singh 42, ID Singh 35, J Suchith 3/26, V Kumar 2/27)

Railways: 219/7 in 50 overs (A Ghosh 76; A Hooda 2/28); Haryana: 113 all out in 35.1 overs (R Sharma 26; K Sharma 5/13)