Amol Jichkar spins Vidharba CA to victory

A superb spell of off spin bowling by Amol Jichkar (3 for 16) late in the day saw Vidharba Cricket Association record a 24 run victory over BPL sports club in the Moin Ud Dowla Gold Cup Tournament at the NFC ground in Hyderabad on Thursday.

Set to score 164 for a win BPL started rather badly losing opener V Vinay Kumar (1) in the second over when C Atram trapped the former in front of the stumps. The other opener Dinesh (1) also did not last long and in the fourth over of the innings Atram trapped him in much the same way as his partner. The BPL captain Yere Goud (19) along with Nitin Mulke seemed to be taking his team on the right path before Goud ran himself out with his team score on 32.

Mulke then kept the battle going and forged a 50 run fourth wicket partnership along with SR Deepu (15) in 13.3 overs. Then with the score at 92, Mulke himself departed after a well compiled 46 off 77 balls which included four hits to the fence. The new bat Shashi (0) did not last long and with only a run added to the score he departed. At the fall of the sixth wicket at 107 in the 38th over, Vidharba skipper Manish Dosi brought Jichkar into the attack and the right arm spinner responded well. Jichkar gave three vital blows dismissing S Shinde (16), Shadab Jakathi (5) and the BPL stumper Prasanna (2). Though the last wicket pair of Sandeep Hebbar (12 not out) and Syed Nooruddin (12) added 23 runs BPL were left stranded at 139 in 45.3 overs.

Earlier, Put into bat, Vidharba Cricket Association managed to put up 163 for the loss of nine wickets in their allotted 50 overs. Vidharba started with a minor hiccup losing opener Adwait Manohar (0) in the second over due to a mix-up which resulted in Adwait failing to reach his crease. Mohd Sabir(7), who replaced Adwait, lasted just 21 minutes in the center before Hebbar shattered his defences.

The 12th over saw the departure of Amit Deshpande (17) and three balls later Ulhas Gandhe (0) gave a simple chance to the wicketkeeper Prasanna off the bowling of Hebbar. This brought in captain Dosi (34) and in the company Parimal Hedaoo (26) took the score on to 74. Then Dosi was joined by C Atram and the two added 44 runs for the sixth wicket in 12.5 overs. It was now left to Atram to hold the fort for Vidharba. Though he kept losing partners he took the score on to 163 before the overs ran out.