BASIL SYLVESTER PINTO
Panaji
With the league phase having concluded in the PSPB Inter-Unit T-20 tournament on Wednesday, ONGC, BPCL, IOC and HPCL entered the semi-finals of the aforesaid tourney, organized by ONGC. The matches will be played on today at GCA, Porvorim, with IOC to clash with HPCL at 9.30 am and ONGC to take on BPCL at 1.30 pm.
On Wednesday, the third and last round of the league was played at GCA and Arlem respectively. The first match played at GCA featured IOC and BPCL; two evenly matched teams with formidable line-ups giving a sniff of a pot-boiler at the outset. And the fans were not to be disappointed with the match going to the wire and a numb-crunching tie being the eventuality. BPCL, on winning the toss decided to field. IOL, on their part, posted 173/6 with India player, Cheteshwar Pujara ensuring his team set a competent target by carrying his bat through the innings with a well-crafted 78 coming from 56 balls, laced with nine delightful boundaries and two well-timed hits over the ropes in his 87-minute vigil. He stayed unflappable and stuck to his job at hand as big wickets fell around him early (Aditya Tare 4, Wasim Jaffer 7, Siddesh Lad 2). Pinal Shah and Khizar Dafedar played an able foil to Pujara in their 63-run and 65-run partnerships for the 5th and 6th wicket respectively. While Khizar played a kamikaze knock of 34 (13 b, 2x4, 3x6), Pinal Shah adopted a more supporting role with 27 coming in as many balls with two boundaries and a six. For BPCL, their attack was spearheaded by former India player, Aavishkar Salvi who returned with figures of 2/25 of his 4 overs, with Bhavin Thakkar, Kiran Adhav and Shreyas Iyer claiming a wicket apiece.
BPCL, in reply were well in the game and looking at breaking down the match into parts as they chased the healthy target.
In the second match at GCA, played between ONGC and EIL, the former boasting of many stalwarts in their ranks gave a sound hiding to the latter comprising of unknown names by etching an unforgettable 198-run win. For ONGC, opener, Mithun Manhas went on a leather hunt flaying all the bowlers until he departed for 108 that came in just 35 balls, with 11 boundaries and nine massive hits over the boundary line. When he lost his wicket to be caught near the boundary, the score was 148 in 9.5 overs and the stubborn batsman who admitted later he wanted to make it real big ignored the request of his coach to retire out upon reaching three-figures. The bowling lacked as much teeth that two other ONGC batsmen after getting a good hit at the wicket retired out. When they finally batted out their 20 overs, ONGC compiled a mammoth 294/6. For the EIL attack, all went for aplenty but for their little cheer, Nikilesh, Raj Kiran and Aditya Vikram picked a stick each. Coming out to bat, EIL did well not to entirely crumble to a star-studded ONGC attack ending with 96/7. Coming in to bat at seven, Munish Jolly made the only notable score for EIL with an unconquered 40 from 42 balls with six boundaries and a six to his credit.
Ishant Sharma, playing his first match in the competition, bagging a wicket while conceding 19 runs in their respective four-over quotas.
Meanwhile, at Arlem, in the first match, OIL had an easy outing against NRL trouncing them by 103 runs. The afternoon match, HPCL outplayed MRPL by 28 runs to seal their berth into the semis.
