South Zone and North Zone got off to flying start in the JK Bose T20 Cricket Tournament organised by the Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI) here on Tuesday.
While South Zone toppled West Zone by eight wickets at Dr Ambedkar College ground, North Zone recorded a thrilling three-wicket win over East Zone at Vasant Nagar ground.
Batting first West Zone posted 136 runs for the loss of four wickets. Ripple Christi (36) was the top scorer. Sanjeev Samyal made a valuable contribution of 33 runs while Pratik Siddharth and Ashwin Ferro scored 19 runs each. K Lakshman was the pick of the bowlers. He scalped two wickets giving away 14 runs. Vijeth and Hardik Worah got a wicket each.
In reply, South Zone chased down the target in the 19th over losing just two wickets. Ashwin Achal struck an unbeaten half-century (57). Lakshman (28) and Hardik (16) played useful knocks with the bat too. Ramesh made 10 runs. Ashwin Ferro and Sanjeev got a wicket each.
In the second match, East Zone were bundled out for just 110 runs in 19.4 overs despite a gritty half-century from Hirak Malakar (60). Anirban Roy made 14 runs. Vinay Yadav (4/24) and Jaswinder Singh Sidhu (3/11) shared seven wickets between them to tore apart East Zone batting line up. Chasing 111 to win, North Zone too struggled right from the start.
Loss of wickets infrequent intervals marred their progress but small but significant contributions from Indranil Bose (20), Akash Rawal (19) and Jayant Singh (17) ensured North Zone cross the finish line in 16.2 overs losing seven wickets. Lakshyasit Gogoi bagged 3/33 while Saubhagya Rath took one wicket giving away 15 runs. Earlier former Indian cricketer Prashant Vaidya inaugurated the tournament.
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