UPCA clips IA wings

Lucknow, Apr 30 (UNI) Going great guns this season and after winning Ranji Trophy and Col C K Naidu Trophy, Uttar Pradesh now move a step closer to reaching the All India Sheesh Mahal Cricket Championship final clipping the wings of strong Indian Airlines (IA) in semi finals today.

In the first semis, UPCA thrashed IA by 113 runs at the K D Singh Babu Stadium here today.

The gamble of inviting UPCA to bat first proved suicidal for IA as UP batsmen took full advantage of the pitch in the initital overs of the innings.

Praveen Kumar again proved his mettle with both bat and ball. He first scored 80 individual runs and with Shivakant Shukla (36) added 69 runs for the opening wicket. Later he claimed three wickets.

After the fall of Shukla, Rohit Prakash (51) gave full support to Praveen to increase the run rate at run a ball.

In later stages of the innings, UPCA lost wickets quickly in quest of increasing run rate. The last three wickets fell at the same score of 233 when wicket keeper Shafiq stumped Salabh and Ratnesh Mishra of the bowling of Mahesh Rawat after the fall of Ali Murtaza, who ran himeself out. UPCA scored 233 runs.

IA never looked in the game since the starting of innings. Medium pacer Praveen Kumar and off spinner Shivakant did a good job for the winners by claiming three wickets each.

As a wickets fell at regular intervals, Mahesh (26) tried his best to check UPCA bowling but in vain. They managed only 120 runs after 32.5 overs play.

The second semi finals will be played between Sahara India and Rizvi Builder's Mumbai tomorrow at the same ground.

UNI KN VS PDS PC1645