da betobet： The New Zealand A, Mumbai Cricket Association XI match promised to bea close one
Staff Reporter22-Jul-2009The New Zealand A, Mumbai Cricket Association XI match promised to bea close one. And by god, close it was…When New Zealand A off-spinner Glen Sulzberger dismissed centurion Nilesh Patwardhan at the Guru Nanak grounds on Saturday afternoon all that separated the two teams was 10 runs. But that minor first innings lead was enough toensure the New Zealanders a berth in the Buchi Babu quarter-finals. They now take on MRF at the MAC A grounds on August 20, 21 and 22.Patwardhan, who made 134 off 351 balls with 13 fours, had earlierploughed a lonely furrow while guiding Mumbai, 198 for four overnight, to 319. His exciting 46-run partnership with last man Nilesh Kulkarni brought the Mumbai team frighteningly close to overhauling the New Zealand target.The other batsmen could only play minor hands. India discard AjitAgarkar, who incidentally went wicketless in the match, made 20 off 65 balls with three fours before being stumped off a Paul Wiseman delivery. Mr.Extras with a rather healthy 40 was the second highest scorer. For NewZealand, off-spinners – Paul Wiseman and Sulzbeger – who both claimedthree wickets each were the successful bowlers.Mark Richardson and Lou Vincent ensured that the New Zealand secondinnings was not a meaningless exercise – at least for the two of them.While Richardson took his time to compile 43, Vincent made an unbeaten51 off 93 balls with six fours and one six. In all New Zealand made114 for two in their second essay.* Kumble, Johnson steer KSCA XI to quarterfinalsAnil Kumble and David Johnson brought about a sharp Tamil Nadu CricketAssociation XI collapse to lead Karnataka State Cricket Association tothe quarterfinals of the MRF Buchi Babu invitation cricket tournamentat the MA Chidambaram stadium on Saturday.When play resumed this morning, the match was interestingly poisedwith TNCA XI 248 for three in reply to KSCA’s 385. All seemed set fora battle royale for the all important first innings lead. But thisnever came about. Very early in the day, Johnson, a former Indiapaceman, dismissed Hemant Kumar. The left hander, 88 overnight, wasout after adding only five runs. Johnson then struck a vital blow byhaving skipper Robin Singh caught by wicketkeeper RC Shanbal for ten.In the next over, Kumble practically settled the issue by bowlingSridharan Sarath for 12 and TNCA, at 272 for six, suddenly faced anuphill task.The collapse continued with the tail offering little resistance.Johnson dismissed TR Arasu and then Kumble, in quick succession gotrid of Gokulakrishnan, Ramdoss and Dhandapani to terminate the hometeam’s innings at 300. Kumble’s figures on Saturday were 11.3-4-17-4and he finished with five for 57. Johnson ended with three for 45.The rest of the match was a formality. Openers Mithun Beerala (57) andRowland Barrington (36) got some good batting practice in sharing apartnership of 79 runs off 28.5 overs. Kumble declared the innings at151 for three after the fifth mandatory over at which point the twocaptains agreed to call off play.* MRF reign supreme over HCA, qualify for quarterfinalMRF stormed into the quarterfinal of the MRF Buchi Babu invitationcricket tournament by getting the better of Hyderabad CricketAssociation by virtue of first innings lead in their first round tieat the Southern Railway Stadium in Chennai on Saturday.Resuming on their overnight score of 448/8, MRF went on to finishtheir first innings at 490 all out in 131.4 overs. MR Shrinivasremained unbeaten on 28, while Dinesh Kaarthick made 24. Noel Davidpicked up the last three wickets of the innings to finish with thefigures of 29.4-2-83-4.HCA had a mountain to climb; they had to score 234 runs to avoid aninnings defeat. Aravind Shetty (72) and skipper Nandakishore (71)added 147 runs for the first wicket. Aashish Kapoor went on to ripwickets out claiming five wickets giving away 63 runs. Arjun Yadav(33) and Noel David (49) were the only batsmen to put up a resistancein the middle order as HCA finished the day on 281/8 off 72 overs.Shivaji Yadav with a dogged 17 off 35 balls and Vishnuvardhan (7 off30 balls) held on to the end. Noel David’s knock literally pulled HCAout of jail as MRF were looking at a possible outright win. David hitnine fours and a six in his 55 ball innings before falling to BablooKumar, just one run short of a half century.Aashish Kapoor plucked out four wickets in the space of 22 ballsconceding just seven runs to leave HCA at a precarious 160/5 in the46th over, still needing 74 runs to make MRF bat again. Arjun Yadavand David added 76 runs for the sixth wicket, taking HCA to 236. Thematch was called off after ten mandatory overs. Kapoor had a goodmatch picking up 9 wickets for 131 runs and played a good hand intaking MRF to the quarterfinals.* Indian Airlines in precarious position against Jolly RoversOn a balmy day with almost no wind, Jolly Rovers took their overnightscore of 171/3 on to 308 all out, having dismissed Indian Airlines fora paltry 94 in the first innings. In their second essay too, theAirlines team did not find the wicket at the Chemplast-IIT Stadiummuch to their liking and were somewhat precariously poised at 148/5 in36 overs on the second day of the MRF Buchi Babu invitation crickettournament tie on Saturday.S Badrinath, overnight on 84, added just one run to his score beforebeing bowled by Abdul Qayum. Mediumpacer Vineet Jain got rid of JHariesh (65, 142 balls, 8 fours) and at 228/5 there was some chancethat the Airlines side could restrict the damage. A late in the order69 off just 52 balls from Ram Kumar at number nine saw the Chennaiside reach 358. Ram Kumar struck an amazing 14 boundaries in hisinnings.Down by 264 runs in the first innings, there was little hope ofsuccess for the Airlines side. Openers Ravneet Rickey and MunishSharma however, went hammer and tongs at the Jolly Rovers attack. Thepair, who have been batting together from the time India won theUnder-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka struck nine boundaries between them.Neither Ricky (20) nor Sharma (23) could stay at the wicket longenough, despite their good scoring rate. Ishan Ganda perished for 21,Shafiq Khan made one and the Airlines team were in all manner oftrouble at 70/4. However, attacking Karnataka opener J Arun Kumar withan unbeaten 44 (51 balls, 6 fours, 1 six) steadied the ship. SouthpawSukhwinder Singh (30) and Arun Kumar took on the spinners well,lofting the ball over the infield with ease.With just two overs left to be bowled, play was called off due to badlight. L Balaji with two wickets in the innings thus far to add to hissix first innings wickets was operating when play was called off.Jolly Rovers skipper Ajay Kudua was reluctant to take his strikebowler off while Vijay Dahiya and Arun Kumar insisted that light wasnot good enough, and play was called off.* CAB qualify on first innings leadCricket Association of Bengal marched into the quarterfinals of theMRF Buchi Babu invitation cricket tournament by getting better of Oiland Natural Gas Commission in the first round tie played at SriRamachandra Medical College Ground in Chennai on Saturday. CABqualified on the basis of the first innings lead as the match peteredout to a draw.ONGC resumed at 165/1 in their second innings, 39 runs in arrears.Sandeep Sharma completed his century and then went on a leather hunt.Sharma was finally caught by Rohan Gavaskar at mid-wicket off thebowling of Sourashish Lahiri after making 128 runs off 88 balls, whichincluded half a dozen sixes and 13 boundaries. The second wicketpartnership between Sharma and Mithun Minhas yielded 146 runs off just15.5 overs.Lahiri struck a killer blow in the same over removing the explosiveVirender Sehwag for a duck, caught by Gavaskar at mid-wicket. ONGCdeclared their second innings at 448/5 after the 51st over. The delugeof runs had CAB bowlers at the mercy of the batsmen. Minhas wasparticularly harsh as he went about smashing runs to all parts of thefield. He struck five sixes and ten fours in making 163 explosive runsoff just 122 balls. Rizwan Shamshad remained unbeaten on 53 off 45balls, striking four boundaries. Minhas and Shamshad added 136 runs in15.4 overs for the unbeaten sixth wicket.Set a target of 245 runs for an outright win, CAB never gave it achase. They finished the day at 172/3 off 47 overs and qualified forthe next stage. Opening batsman Amitava Chakravarty remained unbeatenon 59 off 139 balls, which included nine boundaries.Rohan Gavaskar played an attractive knock of 77 off 90 balls. Hestruck two sixes and ten boundaries before being caught by Sehwag atslip off the bowling of Sarandeep Singh. Sehwag took all three catchesoff the bowling of Sarandeep Singh who finished with the figures of17-3-41-3.