Silchar, Mar 10 : In what could called a major occassion for cricket lovers in Barak Valley, the final round of the Assam Premier Club Championship got underway at the Satindra Mohan Dev stadium from Friday.
In the first match of the day which was a Group A encounter, Radial Cricket Club (RCL) edged past Tinsukia Town Club by 3 runs in the super over.
Radial skipper Amit Sinha won the toss and elected to field first. The TTC boys played sensibly and posted 144 for five wickets in 20 overs. Wicket-keeper batsman Ayush Agarwal was the top scorer with 64 runs laced with five boundaries and one six. Nihar Narah(34) gave him good support at the other end. Chanakya Sarma and Roshan Alam of Radial picked two wickets each.
In reply, Radial Cricket Club leveled the score losing seven wickets but the match slipped into a super over amidst a lot of dramatic conclusion. In the super over, RCL scored 6 runs for two wickets. But they could restrict the TTC boys to 3 runs and picked up two wickets clinching the crucial points in the league stage.
On the other hand, a low scoring match between local team Town Club Silchar and Nirvana Sports Club, the home team sneaked in a win by 3 wickets.
Batting first, Nirvana team was bundled out for 82 runs in 19.2 overs. Middle order batsman Jogeswar Bhumij together with lower order batter Daikho Das tried to stitch in a partnership but the team perished courtesy some disciplined bowling from Town Club. Pacer Sambhu Roy picked 4 wickets for four runs in 3.2 overs. Harsh Kumar also scalped 3 wickets with Aman Chetry and Samair Sarma picking one wicket each.
Chasing the target was not an easy task for the home side as they lost opener Aman Chetry for a duck with just five runs on the board. In fact, Town Club kept losing wickets at regular intervals which gave the Nirvana boys more than a glimmer of a hope of a win. But with a poultry total on the total, it was all too late for them as Town Club team reached the target with nine balls to spare. Abhishek Deb was the top scorer with 28 runs along with opener Ram Chandra Das who scored 19 runs. Jogeswar Bhumij and Rohit Rowniar got 3 wickets each.
Earlier in the day, the championship was ceremoniously inaugurated by DIG Southern Range KJ Saikia alongside officials of the District Sports Association. Saikia conveyed his best wishes to the participating teams and also to Assam Cricket Association allotting the match to District Sports Association Silchar. DSA president Babul Hore and General secretary Bijendra Prasad Singh thanked the functionaries of Assam Cricket Association and also the Joint Secretary of BCCI Devajit Saikia for giving the final round matches of the tournament to Silchar DSA and hoped that the tournament will be a grand success.