Shillong, Apr 2: Two attempts to hold Meghalaya’s semifinal against Nagaland in the 1st North East Inter State Friendship Tournament failed due to bad weather, with hosts Nagaland sent through based on their group performance.
Meghalaya were second in Group A while Nagaland had topped Group B; by dint of this, the latter qualified for tomorrow’s final where they will take on Manipur.
Yesterday was the scheduled day for the two semifinals. While Manipur and Sikkim were able to play a reduced 35 overs-a-side game (which the former won by four wickets), Nagaland were only able to bat 20.4 overs against Meghalaya before play was abandoned.
Today, on the reserve day, the match was reduced to 38 overs each and Meghalaya made 168/9 batting first. Nagaland, however, only got 9.1 overs of batting before bad weather again spoiled proceedings; this was not enough for a result to be declared and the semifinal had to be abandoned again, this time permanently.
Meghalaya’s campaign in the tournament started with a big victory over Arunachal Pradesh by eight wickets before losing to Manipur by six wickets.
