MUMBAI, February 4: An unbroken 30-run stand for the last wicket between Amol Patil (8) and Jagdish Shetty (20) helped hosts Mahindras beat Air-India by one wicket at the MIG ground today.Mahindras thus entered the semi-finals of the K C Mahindras Invitation Cricket Shield tournament. Chasing 203, Mahindras were struggling at 53 for six when the seventh wicket pair of Chandrakant Pandit and Premal Rachh added 77 runs. Premal made 30 while Pandit went on to score 102 with a six and 11 fours before becoming the ninth man out with his team well in sight of victory.
Medium pacer Ashutosh Dubey was the most successful bowler with seven for 85 from 27 overs.
Tata Sports and Mumbai under-19 medium pacer Sriram Kannan wrecked Sun-Grace Mafatlal with a six-wicket spell and gave his team an eight-wicket win at the Elf Vengsarkar Academy ground, Oval.
Sun Grace, after being put in, were in all sorts of trouble against pacers Kannan, Yogesh Kaudhare and Himanshu Waingankar and were bundled out for 65. Kaudhareand Waigankar took two wickets a piece.
Left-handed Nishit Shetty, with an unbeaten 36, took Tata home after they lost two wickets.
Nilesh Mittal's unbeaten 94 (10x4, 1x6) and his 121-run stand with Tushar Shringare (37) for the third wicket enabled Western Railway defeat Central Railway by seven wickets.
The match between Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) and Bharat Petroleum ended in a tie. But RCF took the match on the basis of better run-rate to enter the semi-finals.
Brief scores: Air-India 203 (Arjun Mistry 51; Anand Yalvigi 4-17) lost to Mahindras 207-9 (Chandrakant Pandit 102, Preal Rachh 30; Ashutosh Duby 7-85).
Sun-Grace Mafatlal 65 (Sriram Kannan 6-36) lost to Tata Sports Club 66-2 (Nishit Shetty not out 36).
Central Railway 193 (Ashok Kadam 77; Hitesh Popat 7-76) lost to Western Railway 195-3 (Nilesh Mittal not out 94; Tushar Shringare 37).
BPCL 179 in 67.3 overs (Raju Govekar 41, Vinayak Samant 43; J P Yadav 5-51) lost toRCF in 46.5 overs (J P Yadav 37, Ojas Mehta 59, Sandeep Dahad 38; Hakim Khan 5-53, Sutanshu Kotak 3-43) on better run-rate).
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
