Shillong, Nov 10: Meghalaya defeated Puducherry by 71 runs in the U-23 Men’s One-Day Trophy in Cuttack today, with a fine batting performance by Raghav Kapur and solid bowling attack.
This win comes just a day after the senior team were beaten by Puducherry in the national T20 tournament, the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
Meghalaya won the toss and chose to bat first. After the loss of two early wickets Kapur joined opener Rohit Shah at the crease and scored an unbeaten 98, while Shah made 46. They put on 91 runs together for the third wicket. A handy 24 from Aditya Verma then helped take Meghalaya to 213/8 in their 50 overs.
In the chase Elchiang Momin claimed the first wicket for Meghalaya in the fourth over. Momin was the only bowler to bowl his full complement of overs and finished with a very economical 1/36 in 10 overs.
Puducherry were in real troubled at 66/6, but a middle order partnership rebuilt the innings before Anish Charak ripped through the tail and they were all out for 142.
Charak finished with figures of 3/24, while Arbin Singh took 3/28, including the wicket of Puducherry’s top scorer. Akash Choudhary (2/17) was the other wicket-taker for Meghalaya.
(Photos of Raghav Kapur, Anish Charak and Arbin Singh contributed by the Meghalaya Cricket Association)