Vikas, Nachiket lead victory charge

Published May 24

B D Narayankar

bapun@sakalherald.com

PASHAN: It was worth waiting for, because Vikas Navale and Nachiket Kulkarni of Chavan Cricket Academy produced some lusty hitting not seen in any of the Late Kasturi Rangachar Memorial Cricket Tournament being played at NCL Ground, scoring a record-of-sorts 246 runs for 6 wickets in stipulated 25 overs to clinch victory against WPCA, who could muster up only 97 runs for 8 wickets in reply.

Chavan batsmen tore WPCA’s weak bowling attack to shreds soon after their top-order batsmen were packed off to the pavilion when the score read 39 runs on the board.

It was a sheer aggressive batting by Vikas (92 runs) and Nachiket (69). They had a mammoth 153-runs stand for third wicket. Soon after Vikas arrived in the middle, he blazed two glorious shots, giving signs of what is to come from his bat.

He sent down shivers in the WPCA camp by belting eight boundaries and three towering sixes. Nachiket too opened up, scoring 69 runs with seven boundaries and a huge six.

Both of them hammered Hari Om Dhumal, Vardhaman Lodha and Sagar Waidande out of the park. Most expensive being Hari Om, giving 62 runs in five overs.

In reply WPCA, began their run chase rather poorly. They lost wickets at regular intervals, trying to accelerate the run-rate.

In the midst, Nitesh Sapre (52 n o) top-scored for WPCA standing his ground while watching his teammates losing their wickets at the other end.

Meanwhile, Rajput Cricket Academy (RCA) continued their winning streak by defeating Ingulkar Cricket Club (ICC) by six wickets.

Chasing 136 runs put by ICC, RCA got those runs with 27 balls to spare. Rahul Gaikwad top-scored with 51 not out for RCA.

Earlier, RCA pacer Rushikesh Ghatkal bagged hat-trick by removing Agnay Hemade (7), Nikhil Mate (0) and Praful Choudhary (0), crippling ICC score to 44 for six at one stage.

Devendra Gujar top-scored for ICC with 64 runs.

SCORES: ICC 135 all out in 24.2 overs (Devandra Gujar 64, Rushikesh Ghatkal 3 for 13, Sagar Parkhe 2 for 40) lost to RCA 136 for 4 in 20.3 overs (Rahul Gaikwad 51, Sagar Parkhe 28, Suraj Gupta 1 for 15); Chavan Cricket Academy 246 for 6 (Vikas Navale 92, Nachiket Kulkarni 69, Sagar Waidande 3 for 42) bt WPCA 97 for 8 in 24.2 overs (Nitesh Sapre 52 n o, Bharat Purohit 2 for 24, Manish Kothari 2 for 4, Vikas Navale 2 for 24)


BRIEFLY

GAJANAN Rajurwad, Loukik Jadhav and Mihir Sawant of Poona District Football Association (PDFA) had the distinction of attending U-21 West Zone National Football Championship held at Mandla in Madhya Pradesh from April 26 to May 6.

Meanwhile, Anjuna Turumbekar, Priyanka Gurav and Maya Ingawale of PDFA represented Maharashtra in the 15th Senior Women's National Football Championship held at Rourkele in Orissa from April 26 to May 13, according to a press release.