By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, March 8: An extraordinary first day’s play between Shillong Cricket Association A and Ri Bhoi District Cricket Association saw 28 wickets fall in the Inter-District U-23 Men’s Cricket Tournament Zone 1 final in Nongpoh today.
At the close SCA-A led by 132 runs, eight wickets down in their second innings.
On a day that belonged to the bowlers, SCA-A won the toss and chose to bat first but were bundled out for 107 in 39.4 overs. Abhishek Kumar top-scored with 38 off 31 deliveries, while Swastik Chettri contributed 25 off 52. Ram Gurung bowled 20 tireless overs and gave away a measly 25 runs while grabbing four wickets. Bharat Gurung, meanwhile, took 2/22.
Ri Bhoi’s first innings was even briefer, lasting only 24.4 overs as they were all out for 64. Bharat scored nearly half of the runs (31 off 59 deliveries), while Kumar was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 6/39. Lokesh Turaha also nabbed 3/7.
This gave SCA-A a first innings lead of 43 but Ri-Bhoi tried to make life as difficult as possible once again in the former’s second innings. At stumps SCA-A were 89/8. Ram and Bharat were again the bowlers with the best figures for Ri-Bhoi, taking 4/41 and 2/30 respectively.