Gush CC win,enter semi-final

Man of the Match Wilkins Victor did the star turn for Gush Cricket Club (GCC) in the last league match of the 33rd Lala Raghubir Singh Memorial cricket tournament on Tuesday,scoring a half-century and snapping up three wickets against Rajnigandha Cricket Club (RCC) to help his team into the last four and complete the semi-final line-up.

Batting first at the Modern School (Barakhamba Road) grounds,Gush CC piled up a competitive 232 in 40 overs,with Victor (64) being the highest scorer. He was ably supported by Prateek Pawar (43). For Rajnigandha CC,Tushar Pant fought a lonely battle with both the bat and the ball but found little support from the rest of his team mates. He picked up a five-wicket haul including that of Victor,besides three others of the top six. But with handy contributions from all the top six batsmen and a crucial 63-run third-wicket partnership between Rushil Bhaskar and Pawar,GCC managed a competitive total. Kuldeep Rawat,Manoj Chauhan and Puneet Mehra took one wicket each.

In reply,RCC kept losing wickets at regular intervals and the absence of a steady partnership made the difference. Despite hard work by Tushar Pant (52) and Aditya Jain (48),RCC managed to reach just 186 runs in 36.2 overs,falling short of target by 46 runs. For GCC,Shoaib Prasad took three wickets while Ajay Chouhan and Bhaskar took one apiece. In the semi-finals,Sonnet Cricket Club will play Air India on Wednesday while Gush Cricket Club play Collage Group on Thursday.

Brief Scores: Gush Cricket Club 232 all out in 40 overs (Wilkins Victor 64,Prateek Pawar 43; Tushar Pant 5/40); Rajnigandha Cricket Club 186 all out in 36.2 overs (Tushar Pant 52 n.o.,Aditya Jain 48; Wilkins Victor 3/36,Shoaib Prasad 3/45)