da fezbet： Karnataka State Cricket Association scored a thrilling three wicketwin off the last over against Indian Airlines Corporation in the MoinUd Dowla Gold Cup Tournament at the ECIL ground in Hyderabad onThursday
Natarajan Sriram07-Sep-2000Karnataka State Cricket Association scored a thrilling three wicketwin off the last over against Indian Airlines Corporation in the MoinUd Dowla Gold Cup Tournament at the ECIL ground in Hyderabad onThursday.Needing 174 for victory, KSCA made a shaky start when they lost openerBarrington Rowland(8), falling leg before to J Srinath off the lastball of the fifth over. Then AR Mahesh (15) joined Vijay Madyalkar(17) and took the score to 44 in a further seven overs, when Madyalkarlost his defences to Sonu Sharma. Seven balls later, Mahesh departedon the same score when he was picked up by Nikhil Chopra.But the two new batsmen B Akhil (35) and KN Ramesh (39) put theirheads down to forge a fruitful 75 run stand for the fourth wicket in18 overs. Ramesh, in his 58 minute stay faced 64 balls and hit threeboundaries before he was caught by VVS Laxman off Sonu Sharma. Akhildid not last long and he departed at the score of 139 in the 35thover. DC Rajesh followed him to the pavilion in the 36th over with outtroubling the scorers. But Raj Shekar Shambal (27) in the company ofAnand Yalvigi (18 notout) took the score onto 162 before Shambal fellto Srinath. Now it was left to Anand and Amit Kumar (3) to take KSCAto hit the remaining runs and the two finished the match in the lastover.Earlier in the day, Indian Airlines were all out for just 173 runs intheir allotted 40 overs. Openers J Arun Kumar (8) and J Srinath (24)added 31 runs in 6.4 overs before Arun gave a return catch to DCRajesh. Srinath also departed in the tenth over with the score at 44.This brought VVS Laxman (58) to the crease and in the company of KiranKumar (23) and both put on 74 runs for the third wicket in 16.5 overs.Laxman was caught behind by Rajashekar off Akhil after a 65 ball essaywhich saw six hits to the fence and one sailing over it. With the fallof Laxman the rest of the batting failed to flower and Indian Airlinesinnings folded up in the 40th over with 173 on board.