UPCA, CAL win inaugural ties

Lucknow, Apr 24 (UNI) Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) and Cricket Association Lucknow (CAL) won their respective round robin league matches of the 54th All India Sheesh Mahal Cricket tournament for 'Sahara City Homes' cup here today.

On the first day of the nine day tournament, UPCA beat Orissa Cricket Association (OAC) by 43 runs at the K D Singh Babu Stadium, while LCA trounced Rizvi Builder's Mumbai by 46 runs at the Chowk Stadium in group 'A' matches.

Ravikant Shukla-led UPCA posted 211 for the loss of nine wickets in stipulated 40 overs.

The skipper hit a quick-fire 56 runs off 49 ball, which included seven hits to the fence. Before becoming the victim of S Satpathy, he alongwith Tahir Abbas (40) gave a solid 63 run fourth wicket partnership.

OCA innings started disastrously, with medium pacer Praveen Kumar striking the first blow to claim the prized wicket of Santosh Mishra.

their innings folded at 168. The wrecker-in-chief for UPCA was man of the match Ravikant Shukla who claimed three wickets conceding 21 runs in his three overs spell.

At the Chowk stadium, put in to bat first cal openers Alok Pandey (41) and Amit Singh (73) gave a flying start scoring 100 runs for the opening wicket.

Amit before running himself out, struck eight boundaries and CAL accumulated 217 runs for the loss of four wickets.

Barring Amardeep Sonkar (44) and Brijesh Tomer (67), none of the other batsmen could resist CAL bowling.

Chetan Sachdeva and Agha Shahid claimed three wickets apiece giving away 35 and 32 runs respectively. The team, led by Rahul Bakshi, was bundled out for 171 facing 34.5 overs -- 47 runs short of victory target.

UNI KN VS PDS KP1622