Principal Correspondent :
Vidarbha batsman R Sanjay missed out on a well deserved century but helped his side Team Sky Blue put up a mammoth total of 184 runs against Team Yellow which turned out to be a winning total in the high-scoring encounter of the VCA organised T20 cricket tournament at its Jamtha stadium. Riding on Sanjay’s 95 and Siddhesh Neral’s four wickets, Team Sky Blue managed to beat Yellow by 10 runs on Saturday. Sky Blue posted 184 for five from 20 overs with Sanjay scoring bulk of the runs. His 55-ball knock was stitched with nine boundaries and five huge sixes. The top and middle order could not make much of an impact as it was Sanjay show all the way. Lower order baters Ravi Jangid (24*) and Nayan Chavan (20*) were the other notable scorers for Sky Blue. For Yellow, Akshay Dullarwar took two wickets while Aditya Thakre, Mehul Raikwar and Ganesh Bhosale took one each. Team Yellow’s chase was shaky as they lost opener Avesh Shaikh with scoring in the very first over.
Anirudha Choudhary scored a half century (51, 35b; 6x4; 1x6) while Yash Kadam (20) and Akshay Wadkar (28) kept the chase going. Lalit Yadav once again used his long handle for second successive day as he kept his team’s hopes alive with a 13-ball 40. He hammered five huge sixes and a boundary. Dullarwar remained unbeaten on 29 from 18 balls. Yellow managed 174-7 from 20 overs. For the winners, Neral took four wickets from his quota of four overs conceeding 36 runs while Suniket Bingewar took two and Gaurav Bhoble one. Sanjay was named man of the match.