Panaji: Abhinav Tej Rana scripted a fine century to power Margao Cricket Club to a comfortable victory over Desserts N’More Geno Sports Club in the Bandodkar T20 League 2024 at Panjim Gymkhana ground here on Saturday. In the other match, defending champions Salgaocar Cricket Club got the better of a fighting Chowgule Sports Club by one run to book their spot in the semi-finals.
Margao Cricket Club will take on Salgaocar CC in the first semi-final on Tuesday (16th April) while Manas Panjim Gymkhana will clash with Desserts N’More Geno SC in the other semis on the same day.
Electing to bat first, MCC rode on an entertaining display by opener Abhinav, who scored 101 runs off 57 balls. His impressive knock consisted 14 boundaries and four sixes, and propelled MCC to a huge total of 217/5. The highlight of this power-packed batting performance was the 144-run partnership for the third wicket between man-of-the match Abhinav and Samar Dubhashi (47). Yadla Vasu played an unbeaten cameo of 35 runs off 11 balls to provide the final flourish. Geno’s Mohit Redkar and Amulya Pandrekar took two wickets each.
In reply, Desserts N’More Geno SC did put up a fight with Pukhraj Mann being the main aggressor with his 76 runs coming from 47 balls with the help of four boundaries and six sixes. Dev Lakra (28), opening duo of Veer Yadav (24) and Anand Tendulkar (23) all got starts but couldn’t convert into substantial score; and Geno were restricted to 188/9 as MCC got wickets at regular intervals to register a 29-run victory with Vasu Yadla taking three wickets while captain Felix Alemao picked up a couple of wickets.
The last match in the group stage, was a cliffhanger with Salgaocar CC posting 164 all out in 19.4 overs and then stopping Chowgule Sports Club’s charge at 163/7. Opting to bat first, Salgaocar found a saviour in former Goa Ranji Trophy all-rounder Amit Yadav, who top-scored with 40 runs (4×2, 6×2) coming in at a time where the defending champions were suffering a collapse. Gauresh Kambli (32) and Aditya Suryawanshi (25) also made important runs. Chowgule bowlers worked hard and Jagdish Patil was the pick of them with 3/29 being his return. Saniket Palkar, Keith Pinto and B Sandeep took two wickets each.
Chowgule SC kept themselves in the hunt to chase the target with a battling performance as Tunish Sawkar (44 off 22 balls; 4×2, 6×4) and Sourabh Singh (33) went after the bowlers with a calculated assault in the latter stages after captain Rajshekhar Harikant (38) showed a positive approach from the start. However, the wickets of Tunish and Sourabh in the last two overs, saw Salgaocar claw their way back. Amit Yadav was named man of the match.
Panjim Gymkhana Managing committee member Prashant Kakode and PG Treasurer Suresh Karapurkar presented the man of the match award after the respective matches.
