After being caught on a wet wicket, defending champions MCC (Blue) almost snatched win over MCC (Red) in the final of the B4S (Brain-4-Sports)- MCC Pro-40 Five-team double leg League-cum-knock-out, played at Oval Maidan here today.
MCC-REd-champs-2017
Put into bat MCC (Blue), winners of the league for the last two years, collapsed like nine pins and were shot out for just 33 runs in 12.4 over. Medium pacers Jitendra Paliwal (6/13) and Kaushik Kunder (3/18) bowling unchanged made good of the wet wicket tgo share the spoils.
However, MCC (Red) batsmen, perhaps thought the target too meager, but their batsmen made hara-kiri and almost played into the holders hands as their medium pacers Zaid Khan (7/20) and Altamas Khan (2/11) ran through their batting lineup as they were reeling at 30/9 before their last pair saw them through.
Brief scores of the final: MCC (Blue) 32 all out in 12.4 overs (Jitendra Paliwal 6/13, Kaushik Kunder 3/18) lost to MCC (Red) 33/9 (Zaid Khan 7/20, Altamas Khan 2/11) by 1 wkt. MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Jitendra Paliwal.
PLAYERS LOCKED INSIDE OVAL MAIDAN: Over 100 players, who were playing matches at the Oval Maidan, found themselves locked inside, because the p0lice had locked the gates at the High court side as well as opposite side as a security measure in view of President Pranab Mukherjee was passing through that road today. At around 3 p.m. some of the matches got over and the players were ready to leave. But they found no exit as both the gates were locked. Some of them tried and succeeded in climbing over the fencing to go out. On being asked they were told by the Police officials that they have instructions from higher authorities not to allow people to cross. On repeated requests, however, after almost two hours they unlocked the gates to allow the players to go out.