UP, Ranchi advance at junior cricket meet

Ranchi Boosters pulled off a stunning five-wicket win over favourites UP Heroes to send the coaches of the other three teams in group C scrambling for their calculators in the Indian Junior Players League Talent Hunt here at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.

While both UP Heroes and Ranchi Boosters eventually sealed their berths for the quarterfinals, the suspense in group C got over only when the Bangalore Stars-Mumbai Masters tie, the last match was completed later, with the Masters winning by 15 runs.

Despite the defeat, UP Heroes still topped Group C with a better net run rate (1.42) than Ranchi Boosters (0.28). Bangalore Stars and Mumbai Masters crashed out with just one win each.

Batting first after winning the toss, UP Heroes put up a formidable score of 147/6 in their 20 overs.

The trio of Aansh Kashyap (41 runs off 42 deliveries), Keshav Aggarwal (42 runs off 33 deliveries) and skipper Aryan Lakra (28 runs off 27 deliveries) seemed to be guiding UP Heroes to a bigger total until Ranchi skipper Shane Ali put the brakes on with an impressive haul of two wickets for just 16 runs.

To Ranchi Booster's credit, they stayed focused despite the early loss of their opener Harshit Raj in the third ball of their innings, run out for a duck. The onus was on skipper Shane Ali (54 runs off 47 deliveries) and Abhishek Kachchap (32 runs off 38 deliveries) to first steady the Ranchi Boosters innings and then go all out to chase the required 148.

After four overs, Ranchi were 27 for the loss of one wicket and facing huge pressure.

Brief scores: UP Heroes 147/6 in 20 overs (Aansh Kashyap 41, Keshav Aggarwal 42, Aryan Lakra 28; Shane Ali 2/16) lost to Ranchi Boosters 148/5 in 19.2 overs (Shane Ali 54, Abhishek Kachchap 32; Shivam Mishra 24; Janmeda 3/26).

--IANS

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