Oriental CC wins on the back of Jay Dawane and Hitesh Arolkar impressive tons in the Summer Shield ‘18

Remember the times of Hayden and Langer or Sehwag and Sachin opening the innings? Some opening pairs are so made for each other and are so dangerous that they sometimes snatch the game single-handedly away from the opposition. We witnessed a similar sort of batting by two talented openers in the Summer Shield between Oriental CC and Bombay Wanderers at Cross Maidan.

Oriental CC who batted first were off to a flying start as both their attacking openers Jay Davane and Hitesh Arolkar stitched a match winning 202runs stand in mere 149balls. Jay Davane who is a attacking batsman went on to score a brilliant stroke filled 130 off 102 which included 13fours and 1six. What’s more he had a equally destructive partner attacking in tanden as Hitesh Arolkar also smashed an aggressive 104 off just 79balls which included 15fours in total. Both the batsman took on the bowlers with will while also rotated the strike nicely keeping the scoreboard ticking. On the back of their thumping tons, Oriental CC reached a healthy total of 361/3 in 44 overs which included 17 penalty runs.

Chasing a mammoth 362 in 45 overs is very difficult and Bombay Wanderers must have felt the pressure of chasing such a big total. Bombay Wanderers were skittled out for 95runs all out as fast bowler Ranjit Patil spearheaded the attack with a match winning bowling spell of 4/18 in 8overs (3maidens) bowling at really good line and length. The rest of the bowlers also supported him well bowling tight and not allowing the batsman to score runs freely.

Oriental CC won the match by 266runs and the openers definitely played a major role in this cleansweep victory for their team.

CRICKETGRAPH