Air India (Blue) beat Tata Sports Club, enter final

MOHALI - Air India (Blue) beat Tata Sports Club by five wickets in a semi-final match of the Sahara Corporate Cup at the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium here Sunday.

With this win, Air India (Blue) have cemented their place in the Sep 8 finals.

Air India Blue elected to field and with the help of some tight spells from its bowlers, they managed to bundle out Tata Sports for 267 runs in 49.4 overs.

Top scorers for Tata Sports were Nishit Shetty (63) and Ishank Jaggi (52). Ajit Agarkar played a quick fire scoring 56 runs in 36 balls and helped his team to reach a respectable total.

Pankaj Singh took four wickets while R.P. Singh grabbed three wickets for Air India.

Though Air India had a stable start their opener Maninder Bisla, who scored unbeaten 152 runs in the last match, could not repeat his magical performance and got out on 23.

C. Madan and Mohammed Kaif played sensibly and stitched a partnership of 142 runs in 143 balls for the second wicket.

However, the game was interrupted for nearly 30 minutes due to a power failure in the 28th over of the second innings. At that time Air India had scored 153 runs for the loss of one wicket. Madan was playing on 85 and Kaif was holding the crease at 30 runs.

To compensate the lost time, the V. Jaya Devan (VJD) method was applied and the target for Air India was reduced to 246 runs that they had to score in 45 overs.

Air India comfortably reached their target, scoring 247 runs for the loss of five wickets in 43.2 overs.

Madan scored 114 runs whereas busy cricketer Kaif got out after scoring 56 runs in 57 balls. Last match’s man-of-the-match Mahender Singh Dhoni went cheaply on just 16 runs.

Off-spinner Ramesh Powar, who took two wickets in his nine overs, was the leading wicket-taker for Tata Sports.