Ajit’s all-round show guides Abbott to 4 wicket victory over Piramal
Venue: Navroj Cricket Club
A clinical all-round performance from Ajit Sonavadekar powered Abbott Healthcare to a 4 wicket win over Piramal Healthcare in the semi-final of Milan Memorial Tournament, Plate Division (40 over). With this loss, Piramal are out of the tournament while Abbott will have a shot at the trophy in the finals.
Piramal won the toss and elected to bat first. They were off to a bad start as half the team was back in the pavilion by the 10th over with only 37 runs on the board. Ajit removed the openers Aravindan and Ronak while Anand gave away his wicket to S. Bhoir after consuming 39 balls to score 15 runs.
Rahul and Vinayak stopped the fall of wickets for next 7 overs and scored 33 runs in the process. But once their partnership was broken, there was no stopping to Abbott bowlers who rattled the lower half of the batting with some accurate bowling. As a result, Piramal were all out for paltry 116 in the 27th over. Extras totalled to 30 and was the second highest score of the innings after Vinayak’s 33. Sandesh Bhoir captured 3 wickets while Ajit, Sandesh Agare and Sandeep managed a couple of wickets each.
Abbott’s innings were not a cake walk either. After the opening pair of Shankaran and Sandesh were separated in the 4th over, someone was required to hold one end and steer the innings. Ajit provided that solidity and scored 40 runs off 46 balls. He had short but crucial partnerships with Shankaran, Puneet and Sandesh Bhoir. He was the last man dismissed when the team score was 91 in the 21st over. But Ritesh and Vivek helped their team cross the line with no further hiccups.
Piramal’s Amol and Rahul bowled superbly for their 2 wickets each but the score put up by their batsmen was too less to pose any serious threat to the chasing team.
Ajit Sonavadekar for his all-round effort of 40 runs and 2 wickets was adjudged man of the match.
Brief Scores:
Piramal: 116 all out in 26.4 overs (Vinayak 33, S Bhoir 3/22, Sandeep 2/17)
Abbott: 119/6 in 24.5 overs (Ajit 40, Reetesh 17*, Rahul 2/23, Amol 2/28)
Match Report by:
Sumanyu Jain
Regional Manager & Editor @CricketGraph