Shillong, May 8: St Nanak Secondary School (pictured right) defended their U-18 title in the Shillong Cricket Association’s Inter-School Cricket Tournament 2026 by defeating KV Happy Valley by 17 runs in the final here yesterday.
The U-15 champions this year were the SCA’s own academy team (pictured left), who sneaked to victory by 1 wicket over BK Bajoria School in an incredibly close title match.
Like they did last year, St Nanak won the toss and batted first, where they managed a respectable 124/4 in a reduced 17 overs. They were steered by Piyush Kumar Ray’s impressive 51 from 46 deliveries and the run-a-ball 36 by Ganesh Kumar.
In reply, KV Happy Valley lost too many wickets in the chase and were restricted to 107/9 in 17 overs, though Adit Pradhan showed good promise with a knock of 40 from 36 deliveries. Ganesh came back with the ball and took 3/24 in 4 overs; together with his runs off the bat, he was adjudged to be the Player of the Final.
The U-15 final went the full 20 overs a side distance. Here BK Bajoria also chose to bat first on winning the toss but could only go at a little more than 4 an over for a total of 83/8 in 20 overs. Aryan Sunar’s 40 from 50 balls was the highlight of the batting department, while Devansh Deb bagged 3/15 in 4 overs and Ayush Kumar Roy 2/19 in 4 for the bowling side.
The smallish target was a bit of a headache for the SCA Academy but not for want of time – they won with seven balls to spare. Instead they too lost batters (Samarth Pathak was largely responsible for that with 3/17 in 3.5 overs) at regular intervals and creeped over the line with their last batting pair out in the middle. Devansh’s 14 from 35 balls was the high score and he was named Player of the Final.
This was the second year in a row that former champions BK Bajoria finished as runners-up in the U-15 tournament.
(Shillong Cricket Association photos)
