It was an historic day for cricket in Garo Hills today as the Alotgre Ground in Tura hosted its first BCCI domestic match, a U-23 men’s Col CK Nayudu Trophy 2024-25 game between Meghalaya and Bengal.
It has been a long-held dream for the Meghalaya Cricket Association to host matches at this beautiful facility and the Tura District Cricket Association’s members and groundstaff and others have poured their heart and soul into making the pitch, outfield, pavilion and other areas ready, encouraged by MCA President Nababrata Bhattacharjee throughout.
The start of the four-day match saw Bengal win the toss and choose to field first. They bowled Meghalaya out for 133 and then made 116/4 by stumps, trailing by 17.
Before the game began, the MCA marked the event with its traditional felicitation of the visiting team members and match officials. Present on this monumental occasion were Bhattacharjee, MCA Honorary Secretary Gideon Kharkongor, MCA Joint Secretary Chiang D Shira, Apex Council Member Sengnab Momin, former MCA President Danny Marak, noted sports administrator Bruce P Marak and former players who have done much to popularise the sport in Garo Hills.
Coming back to the match, several home team batters got starts but the top score was only 29, made by the patient Kush Agarwal from 105 deliveries. Swastic Chettri was right behind with a contribution of 26 from 56. Rahul Prasad was Bengal’s most successful bowler, with figures of 4/33.
The visitors’ first innings then got off to a rocky start with Manish Sharma, playing on his home ground, dismissing Sumit Nag for a duck in the second over. Meghalaya further reduced the visitors to 32/3 but solid knocks from Prayas Ray Barman (31 from 41) and Rishabh Chaudhary (33 not out from 22) saw Bengal to 116/4 in 26 overs before stumps. Manish claimed 2/42, while Bipin Kr Ray took 1/28 and Abhishek Kumar 1/36.
