Yesterday was a day for India to celebrate victory in the ICC World Cup against Pakistan but Meghalaya’s joy at that was tempered by two defeats for its U-19 men’s and women’s teams.
While the men lost to Uttarakhand by a large 296 runs in the Vinoo Mankad Trophy one day tournament in Vijayawada, the women were beaten by Tamil Nadu by 10 wickets in the Women’s U-19 One Day Trophy in Surat.
Uttarakhand won the toss and scored almost at will as they amassed 430/7 in 50 overs with two huge centuries by Aarav Mahajan (140) and Poorvansh Dhruv (174). If it had not been for this pair, Meghalaya might have done fairly well, as they had reduced their opponents to 92/3 before Mahajan and Dhruv added 319 runs for the fourth wicket in 31.3 overs.
Shavian Blah was the most successful of the Meghalaya bowlers, taking 2/63 in 10 overs and he was the most economical bowler of eight used. Angkit Tamang (2/67 in 10) bowled the only maiden over of the innings, while D Marak (1/66 in 5) and Charm Marbaniang (1/73 in 8) were the other wicket takers.
The huge target was out of reach for Meghalaya, though they gave it their best shot with Shubham Rasaily top-scoring with 29. Three others managed to get starts but ultimately fell for less than 20 each – Tamang (18), Rituraj Rabha (17) and Avinash Rai (13) – and the team were all out for 134 in 47.4 overs.
Meghalaya will next play Hyderabad tomorrow.
In the women’s tournament, Meghalaya were made to bat first after Tamil Nadu won the toss but were bowled out for a mere 44 in 26.3 overs. Janicka Marak once again impressed on an otherwise difficult day with a score of 21. TN only needed 4.4 overs to chase down the total, which they managed without loss.
Meghalaya will play their last and final match of the tournament against Maharashtra tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Meghalaya senior men’s team will play their first fixture of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament tomorrow against Hyderabad in Jaipur.
