St Anthony’s Cricket Academy and the Shillong Cricket Academy won the U-19 girls’ and U-14 boys’ finals respectively in the 1st SYM Inter Academy Tournament held here on Tuesday.
The two finals involved the same teams but they split honours with St Anthony’s winning the girls’ final by 38 runs, while SCA won the boys’ final by 22 runs at the Don Bosco Mini Stadium.
This initiative for grassroots level players was supported actively by the Meghalaya Cricket Association as parent body of cricket activities in the state.
Batting first, St Anthony’s put up a challenging total of 105/4 in the allotted 15 overs. Dawanshisha Warlarpih scored a brilliant 38, with six boundaries in her total. Isha’s 12 and Adelakmen’s 11 added to the total. Philasyrpai managed to take two wickets.
In the chase, SCA started off confidently with Srijana and Laviola scoring 14 and 13 respectively. However, after they were dismissed, the rest of the team could not contribute much and SCA folded for 67 in 14 overs.
Dawanshisha was brilliant in the field by running out three batters and she was ably supported by Adelakmen and Paia, who took two wickets apiece. Dawanshisha was adjudged as the Player of the Final for her brilliant performance.
Later, the boys final had its ups and downs but SCA largely dominated. Winning the toss, they scored 110/5 after a cautious start. Gautam top-scored with 36 and he was supported very well first by Abdullah and then Suraj, who scored a rapid 20 runs.
Batting second, the Anthonian academy boys could not really maintain their initial tempo and were restricted to ones and twos. Abhinav Khanal fought on with Ram and both ended up on a personal score of 18 runs each. Unmukt Deka fought on valiantly alone and remained not out on 14 runs. The allotted overs were running out fast and the SCA boys restricted boundaries, which put pressure on St Anthony’s. Unmukt and Zephaniah found late boundaries but it was too little, too late and the team fell short by 22 runs.
