BCCI A and A U-16 Cricket : Manipur go down to Bihar
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, March 25 2014: In the end it was a disappointing day for the U-16 Manipur boys cricket team as they went down to Bihar by 8 wickets in the final of the BCCI A and A U-16 Cricket Tournament held at Ranchi, Jharkhand.

Having strode into the final by mauling its opponents, the boys from Manipur crumbled against a resilient Bihar to hand them the championship title on a platter, failing with both the bat and the ball.

On winning the toss, Bihar put in Manipur to bat and this proved to be tactfully correct as the Bihar bowlers managed to extract bounce from the pitch and send the Manipur batsmen back to the pavilion at regular intervals.

Keeping a tight line and length, the Bihar bowlers took full advantage of a bowlers' pitch and never really allowed the batsmen from Manipur to settle down and play a long innings.

Poor running between the wickets and some rash shots only added to the woes of the team from Manipur and they were soon bundled out for a paltry 108 runs in 35.5 overs.

The only notable contribution came from the bat of Johny who made an entertaining 32 runs off 38 balls, but the others could not dig in their heels and keep him company.

Other than Johny, the others who managed to reach the two digit marks were Johnson with 13 runs off 28 balls, Deepu 12 runs not out in 18 balls, Bikramjit 10 runs off 39 balls, and Jameson 10 runs off 12 balls.

Failing to read the line and length, the Manipur boys went in for the big hits and this proved to be their undoing in the end.

Set a modest target of 109, the Bihar batsmen had little difficulty in reaching the target for the loss of 2 wickets in 21-2 overs.

The Bihar players capitalised on the shoddy fielding and poor bowling to come out convincing winners.

Deepu took one wicket in 5 overs.

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