Varanasi, 31 December. With the help of ‘Player of the Match’ Santosh Yadav’s stormy half-century (94 not out, 50 balls, one six, 13 fours), Paradkar XI achieved the glory of winner by defeating Hriday Prakash XI by three wickets in a thrilling final that lasted till the last ball of the 38th Kanishka Dev Gorawala Memorial Media Cricket Competition here on Wednesday.
Under the banner of Varanasi Press Club run by Kashi Journalist Association, on the last day of the first episode of Anand Chandola Sports Mahotsav i.e. the last day of the cricket competition, at Dr. Sampurnanand Sports Complex, Hriday Prakash XI, who came to bat first, scored 192 runs losing four wickets in 20 overs. In reply, Paradkar XI scored 195 runs for seven wickets.
Paradkar XI had completed title hat-trick in 2023
Paradkar XI, probably the most successful team in this longest-running cricket competition of media persons in the sports history of Varanasi, had scored a hat-trick of titles in the year 2023, but last year it had to be eliminated in the initial round. Then 2023 runner-up Ishwardev Mishra XI won the trophy by defeating Vidya Bhaskar XI.
Santosh helped the team reach its destination with useful partnerships
In front of a relatively difficult target, three batsmen including opener Prashant Mohan (31 runs, 20 balls, six fours) had returned to the total of 63 runs in the eighth over. But Santosh, who had scored a fifty in the last group league match, again took the responsibility. He added 38 runs with Sagar Yadav (11 runs) and then put captain Pankaj Tripathi (five runs) at one end and put the opposition bowlers under pressure with a partnership of 53 runs for the sixth wicket.
Ultimately, Santosh made an unbroken match-winning partnership of 35 runs with Dr. Jinesh (seven runs unbeaten). The team needed two runs on the last ball and Santosh hit the winning four in the cover area. On behalf of Hriday Prakash XI, captain Purushottam Chaturvedi took three wickets for 30 runs while Irfan and Sonu got one success each.
Partnership of 96 runs between openers Amit Mishra and Vijay
Before this, in the innings of Hriday Prakash XI, openers Amit Mishra (47 runs, 32 balls, one six, five fours) and Vijay (40 runs, 32 balls, six fours) gave a solid start with a partnership of 96 runs. After both of them returned within seven runs, Irfan (42 runs, 25 balls, one six, four fours) and the previous match’s centurion Sonu (41 runs, 23 balls, one six, six fours) showed their pace and made a partnership of 56 runs.
Irfan and Sonu took Hridaya Prakash XI to 192 runs
When Irfan became the second victim of Sagar (2-28) on the last ball, the team had reached 192 runs. However, in the end this score proved to be insufficient for Hriday Prakash XI as 27 extra runs including 20 wides spent by their bowlers also helped in Paradkar’s victory. Apart from Sagar, Deenbandhu Rai and Sriprakash took one wicket each.
Sonu became the best player of the tournament
Chief guest of the closing ceremony, Municipal Commissioner Himanshu Nagpal and special guest, prominent industrialist Mayank Aggarwal distributed trophies and individual awards to the winning and runner-up teams. Sonu, who scored 174 runs including a century (133 not out) in the tournament, was declared ‘Player of the Series’. Prashant Mohan, who scored 140 runs in three matches, was declared the best batsman and Purushottam Chaturvedi, who took 11 wickets in three matches, was declared the best bowler. RP Gupta and Manohar umpired in the final match while Nandkishore Yadav acted as scorer.
The guests were welcomed by Varanasi Press Club President Chandan Rupani, Minister Vinay Shankar Singh, Treasurer Sandeep Gupta, Kashi Journalist Association President Arun Mishra, General Secretary Jitendra Srivastava and Sports Organizing Committee Secretary KB Rawat, Co-Coordinators Rohit Chaturvedi and Pankaj Tripathi. Rohit conducted the program while vote of thanks was given by Vinay Shankar Singh.
On this occasion, a large number of press persons and sports fans including former president Vikas Pathak, KDN Rai, BB Yadav, Subhash Singh, Rajnath Tiwari, Dr. Atri Bhardwaj, senior journalist Padmapit Sharma, Shubhakar Dubey, Laxmikant Dwivedi, Ramesh Singh, Jaiprakash Srivastava, Ashwini Srivastava, Devesh Singh, Dinesh Singh, Abhishek Singh, Arshad Alam, Dev Kumar Kesari, OP Rai Chaudhary, Suresh Gandhi and Dr. Raghuraj Singh were present.
Comments are closed.