Harris Shield: Rizvi Springfield beat SVIS in thriller

Hitanshu Kamdar of SVIS (Kandivli) bagged 6-55 against Rizvi Springfield at Cross Maidan yesterday. Pics/ Suresh Karkera

Rizvi Springfield (Khar) clinched a thriller against Swami Vivekanand International School (Kandivli) with the former emerging victors by just two runs in a second round match of the MSSA Harris Shield U-16 inter-school cricket tournament at Cross Maidan on Friday.

Sent in to bat by SVIS, the Khar school were bowled out for 190 on the final ball of the stipulated 45-over innings. Left-arm spinner Hitanshu Kamdar (6-55) was the pick of the bowlers for Swami Vivekanand.

The Kandivli school looked on course to chase the target till the time Pranav Sawant (53) and Kartik Patankar (38) were in the middle. However, some audacious shot selection put SVIS in a tricky position. The Rizvi bowlers held their nerve to restrict SVIS to 188-9 in 45 overs and emerge triumphant. Nishid Balla was the top bowler for Rizvi with 5-55. Needing 12 off the last two overs, SVIS managed just four runs off the penultimate over. With eight runs required off the final over, the SVIS lads eventually fell short by a couple of runs.

Atharva Deshpande of SVIS (Borivli) after scoring 157 against Abhinav Vidya Mandir yesterday

SVIS coach Shamji Kanojia was disappointed for not ending up on the winning side. "We could have won this match. Some of our batsmen got out playing rash shots and that cost us the game," he said.

Hitanshu, who grabbed his maiden fifer for SVIS, was gutted. "We never thought we would lose this game. We must learn from our mistakes," he said.

Meanwhile, in another contest, SVIS (Borivli) faced no such hiccups as they beat Abhinav Vidya Mandir (Borivli) by a whopping 394 runs. SVIS posted 438-6, thanks to Atharva Deshpande (157), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (114), Ashay Shukla (56) and Kushagra Kothari (53). Abhinav Vidya Mandir, in reply, were rolled over by Varad Vaze's (8-23) medium pace to be bowled out for 44.

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