Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, June 12: Splendid inning of 76 runs by Ram Dayal and 72 runs by Ashu guided New Challenger (NC) Jammu to register win over KC Sports by 3 runs in the keenly contested inaugural tie of the 8th Pawan Memorial Cricket Tournament at Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS), Akhnoor today.
Batting first after winning the toss, NC set a target of 223 runs for the loss of 5 wickets in stipulated 20 overs. Ram Dayal played a magnificent inning of 76 runs off 42 balls, while Ashu also hit some crispy shots and contributed 72 runs off 35 runs to the total. Hardeep Singh chipped in 32 runs in 23 balls.
For KC Sports side, Abishant, Arjun Chowdhary, Ishan and Vivek shared one wicket apiece.
In the second inning, Suryansh and Abishant Bakshi made 80 runs off 33 balls and 72 runs off 41 balls respectively, but all went in vain as KC Sports could not complete the target in the allotted overs and made 220 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. Shubham Pundeer also made 17 runs off 13 balls.
For NC side, Vijay Dogra scalped 2 wickets, while Ram Dayal and Pranav took one wicket each.
Ram Dayal of NC was adjudged as man of the match for his superb all round performance.
The match was officiated by Sadiq Husain Malik and Dayal Singh as umpires, while Ashu maintained the scorecard.
Earlier, Senior Vice President JKPCC and former Minister Sham Lal Sharma inaugurated the tournament amidst huge gathering of participating teams, spectators and local populace. Among others present were Sham Singh Langeh, President, SCC Akhnoor, Mangu Ram Sharma, Ex City President, Rajinder Gupta, Kuldeep Kour, Joginder Magotra, Aman Gupta, Subash Langer, Naresh Sharma, AYC President, Ankush Sharma, Senior Youth Congress leader, Raman Gupta, Ram Pal Sharma, Rajinder Sharma, etc.
The tournament is being organized by Singh Cricket Club (SCC) Akhnoor and AYC Akhnoor under the overall supervision of Sham Singh Langeh, President, SCC Akhnoor.
Speaking on the occasion, Sham Lal said that youth of the State despite having lot of interest in sports and allied activities and valour and zest for doing better, hardly get much opportunity to showcase their talent and skill, because people around them are least bothered to organise quality tournaments to provide them platform to hone their skill.
He said probably that is one of the reasons as to why our State is still lagging behind in the sports sphere at the National scene, adding that absence of State cricketers in Indian Premier League (IPL) portraits picture of the opportunities and the avenues being provided to the State cricketers at the local level.
Sham said that the infrastructure is inadequate, though some steps were taken by the previous Congress-NC Govt. to give boost to the sports activity but present BJP-PDP Government has miserably failed to raise the infrastructure of sports activity.
He further said that the one outdoor stadium was sanctioned at Palwan, Akhnoor and almost 60 to 70 per cent work has been completed on it, but thereafter work on the same has come to standstill in the present regime. He asked the Government to start the work for this outdoor stadium for the optimum use of the local youths.
Sham said that 12 stadia were sanctioned for J&K but out of these 9 were given to Kashmir region and only 3 were given to Jammu region. He said this is a glaring example of discrimination with Jammu region.
“The BJP Ministers and Legislators who consider themselves as so called ‘Champions’ have failed to get due share for Jammu region”, he added.
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