The Goan Network
Porvorim
ONGC take on Reliance 1 in the finals of Goa Corporate League T20 on Sunday (March 20) after both teams scored contrasting victories in the semi-finals played at GCA Academy grounds, Porvorim on Friday.
In an exciting first semi-final, where the game went into the last over, the team that held its nerve to the end deservedly emerged victors. And to this effect, Goa Lions were tamed by ONGC dejecting many a home fan who was lustily cheering the home team.
Put into bat first, ONGC began sedately with the opening Goa Lions pacers, Rituraj Singh and Buddhadev Mangaldas on song in their opening burst. This brought them an early breakthrough with the dismissal of Samarth Singh (6) at the score of 20 in 3.5 overs. With Tanmay Srivastava joining his captain Suhail Sharma at the crease, they began to gradually build on a partnership without taking too much of a risk.
But as he began to grow in confidence and started to play his shots after a shaky start, the normally
explosive Suhail perished at a quick 35 in his tryst to up the run-rate. With the timely wicket, Goa Lions looked to get on top of the game with the score reading 46/2 in 6.4 overs.
The new batsmen at the wicket, Tanmay and Nitish Rana, who joined him at the crease, began to forge a partnership watchfully and with time spent at the wicket, began to bring their repertoire of strokes. Goa Lions golden arm slow bowler, Sher Bahadur Yadav, was taken to the cleaners in the 12th over as the dangerous Rana dishing out successive maximums. An avaricious attempt to produce a hat-trick of sixes, proved an ominous-looking Rana’s downfall bringing the Goa Lions roaring back into the match at 85/3 with 8 overs left in the innings. At the start of the 15th over, the other set batsman, Tanmay was dismissed with Sirur’s nagging slow deliveries found one having the one-drop batsman plumb in front. The game at run-rate was kept on leash by the Goa Lions attack until the 17th over at 111/4, but the dreaded nelson proved lucky for a change for ONGC with them breaking free. The last three overs went for aplenty with ONGC middle-order batsmen, Milind Kumar 32* (22b, 1x4, 2x6) and Rahul Tewatia 27* (16b, 3x4, 1x6) making a feast of it to take their team to a respectable 153 with no further loss.
In the run-chase, Goa Lions began to shape well to the challenging target, with young opener Suraj
Dongre and captain, Swapnil Asnodkar looking in fine nick. But out of nowhere, Asnodkar played an innocuous looking Suhail delivery uppishly to the bowler who gleefully accepted the gift. At 22/1 after 2.5 overs, another young gun, Snehal Kauthankar joined Dongre and they looked at building a partnership and were progressing well with Dongre well-set and Kauthankar middling the ball nicely.
When all looked good again for the Goa Lions with a well-struck Dongre boundary taking their team past 50 in 5.4 overs, the next ball brought his downfall with a well-judged caught and bowled effort by pacer Subodh Bhatti diving to his right. With the game in the balance, the pace-spin combine of Navdeep Saini and Praveen Gupta choked the run flow. This brought dividends soon after, with Kauthankar holing out to Rana at long on off the bowling of Tewatia with the Goa Lions at 58/3 in 8.1 overs. With the free-flowing top-order back in the hut, the barely tested middle-order until now in the competition, were put to test. Keenan Vaz along with Darshan Misal kept the scoreboard ticking with ones and twos. With 89 required off the last 10, and good strikers to come, the game was in the balance. But with runs not easy to come by, Misal, while attempting a big shot lost his wicket.
With Keenan, looking good at the wicket and Sher, the big-hitter joining him, a score of 102/4 after 15 overs, kept them well within striking distance of the target.
In another high-scoring pot-boiler played under floodlights, Reliance 1 eked out a heart-stopping one run win against IOC to reach the finals. Batting first, Reliance 1 posted 217/4. They kept coming at the ONGC bowlers despite losing their openers (Parthiv Patel and Jitesh Sharma) at the score of 24 by the end of the third over. Nikhil Naik played a fabulous knock bringing out top drawer biggies to end unbeaten on 82 from 51 balls with three boundaries and six maximums. With him staying unbeaten in the end for an unbroken fifth-wicket stand of 111 in just 42 balls was Axar Patel, who played an innings to remember with 60 coming from 21 balls with one hit to the ropes and eight massive sixes.
For the ONGC bowling, Khizar Dafedar had a stick for 28 runs from his four overs. In the chase, Wasim Jaffer on strike 12 needed of 2 balls with Nathu Singh pacer bowling. He hit a six of
the penultimate delivery, and four of the last ball to fall a run shot. Axar Patel was later declared Man of the Match.
