BCCI A and A Cricket Tourney : Manipur outmatch Nagaland, enter final
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, March 23 2014: Dominating with both the bat and ball, Manipur faced little resistance while downing Nagaland by 8 wickets in the last league match of the ongoing BCCI A and A Cricket Tournament to enter the final, where they will meet Bihar on March 25 .

Perfectly complementing each other, the batsmen and bowlers of Manipur overwhelmed the Nagaland players to emerge convincing winners at the last league match which is underway at Ranchi, Jharkhand.

On winning the toss, Nagaland elected to bat first and managed to score 181 in 42.5 overs.

The Nagaland batsmen had to toil hard for their runs as the bowlers of Manipur managed to extract bounce and kept a tight line and length to check the run flow.

Leading the bowling attack was Bidas who returned figures of 5 wickets in 9 overs for 27 runs.

Keeping him company and ably assisting him was Rex who scalped 3 wickets in 8 overs for 28 runs while Milan chipped in with a valuable wicket in 5 overs but at the cost of 33 runs.

Unable to read the line and length as well as the bounce of the ball, the wickets of Nagaland kept falling at regular intervals and the bowlers of Manipur were able to bundle them out for 181 runs in 42.5 overs.

Set a target of 182 runs, the frontline batsmen of Manipur rose to the challenge perfectly, punishing all the loose balls that came their way and playing each ball with merit.

Some fine running between the wickets also contributed to their walk into the final.

Leading the charge for the Manipur team was Santosh, who came out with a blistering knock of 71 runs off 100 balls.

Santosh did well to judge each ball and opened his bat only when necessary, not really going for the big hits, but relying on despatching the loose balls to the boundary and stealing a quick single and twos.

Santosh was ably assisted by Johnson, who made an entertaining 34 runs off 38 balls.

The wayward bowling and the failure of the Nagaland bowlers only made things that easier for the Manipur batsmen as they managed to keep the score card ticking at a healthy pace.

Shitaljit chipped in with a valuable 12 runs off 18 balls while Johny made 18 runs off 36 balls.

The poor bowling coupled by some poor fielding only added to the advantage of the Manipur batsmen and they managed to score on either side of the wicket.

Manipur reached the target of 182 runs in only 33.1 overs for the loss of 2 wickets.

Having beaten Nagaland in the last league match, the team from Manipur has set a date with Bihar for the final match which is scheduled to be held on March 25 .

The Manipur team is taking part in the tournament under the Manipur Cricket Association, which is affiliated to the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

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