Pune Scoring 80 runs off 65 balls, Anglo Urdu opener Rehan Shaikh guided his side to a victory in their first match of group G against Kline Memorial High School in the U-14 Kohinoor Pune District Cricket Association (PDCA) cricket tournament at the Fergusson college ground on Monday.
Shaikh’s knock in the first innings helped his side post 163 runs after 18 overs. Later, the Landge brothers, Amaan and Zaid, pocketed 9 wickets and helped Anglo Urdu dismiss the Kline Memorial in just 61 runs, handing a dominating 102-run victory to Anglo Urdu. Unlike Kline Memorial, Anglo Urdu put 163 runs on the board after losing just one wicket.
In the first delivery of the fourth over, bowler Sarvesh Jadhav managed to swing his ball past batsman Abdul Ahad Shaikh and onto the stumps. After putting 22 runs on the scoreboard, Anglo Urdu lost their first wicket. However, Rehan was not deterred by the early loss of a wicket and was well supported by number three batsman Narendra Karadi.
As Rehan completed his half-century in the 14th over, Narendra gelled well with the opener and reached the 50-run mark himself at the end of the 17th over. The duo smashed 16 boundaries between them to wreak havoc amongst the Kline Memorial fielders. Several fielding errors saw the ball bobbling past hapless fielders gifting Anglo Urdu extra runs.
{{/usCountry}}As Rehan completed his half-century in the 14th over, Narendra gelled well with the opener and reached the 50-run mark himself at the end of the 17th over. The duo smashed 16 boundaries between them to wreak havoc amongst the Kline Memorial fielders. Several fielding errors saw the ball bobbling past hapless fielders gifting Anglo Urdu extra runs.
{{/usCountry}}As Kline Memorial came out to chase a massive target, they got off to a flyer as Narendra started with 3 wide deliveries. At the end of the first over, Kline put 11 runs on the board. However, in the first ball of the second over, Amaan clinched his first wicket of the match after he clean bowled Ayush Chavan. Amaan gave away just 2 runs in the over to drop Kline’s run rate. Kline lost their second wicket after Devashish Bapat was clean bowled by Munazir Shaikh after making just 2 runs off 6 balls. Landge and Munazir continued to bowl several dot balls to unsettle the Kline batsmen.
The game changed in the 6th over during which Landge picked up 3 crucial wickets. In the first ball, Meet Mutha trotted back to the pavilion after his aerial shot was caught by Narendra. A dot ball separated two wickets as Aditya Khaty was dismissed for a duck.
Sarvesh Jadhav tried to turn things around as he smashed a boundary out of nowhere but before he could cause more damage, his stumps were disturbed by a fast delivery from Landge on the last ball of the over. Kline scored 26 after losing 2 wickets after the 5th over and were 31 for 5 after the 6th. Landge returned in the 8th over to haunt Kline Memorial again as he sent Vedant Velapure back to the pavilion after an LBW.
Salman Shaikh was the new bowler in attack, replacing Munazir Shaikh, but was off to a horrible start as he gifted Kline Memorial 9 extras in just one over. Kline failed to capitalise on the opportunity and could only take 9 runs from the over. Salman bowled 8 wides and one no-ball. After terrorising the batting order, Amaan Landge passed the bowling responsibility to his brother, Zaid Landge.
Unlike Salman, Zaid got off to a brilliant start as he clean bowled two batsmen for a duck. Shaunak Bhave walked off the pitch, making no runs off 7 balls after being dismissed on the second ball of the over while Samrat Kadam was dismissed before he could get off the mark in the final ball of the over.
In Zaid’s next over, he picked up another wicket after dismissing Arya Kumwat as Kline touched the 60-run mark in the 12th over with just a single wicket in hand. The youngster returned in the 14th over and picked up his final wicket of the day after dismissing Ishan Barwarkar, giving his side a massive 102-run victory in their first match of the tournament this season.
An all-round performance from the team with three individual starlets standing out in contention for the man of the match award, the organising committee picked Rehan Shaikh for the award after his valiant innings of 80 runs.
“I was feeling confident today. It feels really good to score 80 runs especially in the first game of the tournament. I tried playing different strokes today, but that did not work out. However, I was able to capitalise on the loose deliveries,” Rehan Shaikh, man of the match, Anglo Urdu High School.