GUWAHATI, April 29 � NF Railway Sports Association batted till the tea break of the final day in the two-day league match of the Elite Group senior inter district cricket and scored 627.
After that only 100 minutes of the match remained when Silchar had to bat in their first innings. Unfortunately, the Silchar team, studded with three Ranji players, as many State U-22 players and one U-19 players, was bundled out for 81 in just 72 minutes.
On a perfectly laid batting track at the Nehru Stadium here today, NF Railway resumed their first innings at the overnight total of 355 for five and carried their bat till the final break to gather a massive total. Number nine batsman Arup Das narrowly missed his ton as he was out for 97 while Krishanu Mazumdar contributed 95. Almost all the Railway batsmen were among runs as Sarupam Purkayastha and Mrigen Talukdar added 53 and 38 respectively.
Spinner Kaushik Giri was the most successful Silchar bowler with four wickets while Pritam Das and Samik Das took two each.
Considering the condition of the wicket it looked to be a dull final session of the match. But the tricky NF Railway bowlers, adopting attacking tactics, put the Silchar batsmen in pressure from the very beginning and started taking wickets at regular intervals. The Silchar batsmen seemed to panic and virtually threw their wickets. As many as four of them were out before opening their accounts while opener Sukanta Dey was the top scorer with 16. Moreover, only three of them could reach double figures.
However, the match was of academic interest only as both the teams have already confirmed their berths in the final which will be played from May 1 to 4 at the same venue.
Silchar team management has to sort out a strategy to tackle their opponent with bat and ball. They have some good players in their rank and with proper application they can put up a stiff challenge to Railwaymen in the four-day final.
Brief scores: NF Railway 1st innings 627 (Tarjinder Singh 135, Arup Das 97, Krishanu Mazumdar 95, Sib Sankar Roy 54, Sarupam Purkayastha 53, Manoj Malo 50, Parvez Aziz 43, Mrigen Talukdar 38, Kaushik Giri 4/155, Samik Das 2/62, Pritam Das 2/87).
Silchar 1st innings 81 (Sukanta Dey 16, Raju Das 15, Rajdeep Das 13, Sarupam Purkayastha 3/15, Tarjinder Singh 2/0, Sekharjyoti Barman 2/4, Krishna Das 2/14).
