Loksatta, Navbharat in semis

Loksatta and Navbharat defeated Tarun Bharat and Sakaal in their respective matches to move into the semi-final of the 11th Orange City Hospital Cup inter-press cricket tournament. The tournament is being organsied by Sports Journalists’ Association of Nagpur.
While Loksatta defeated Tarun Bharat by six wickets, Navbharat ousted Sakaal by seven wickets to move into last four.
In the match played at Central Railway ground, Ajni Tarun Bharat, batting first scored 82 runs in 20 overs. Veteran Uday Rangnath and Ravi Daff bowled a tight line to take two and three wickets respectively. But the best bowling performance was from medium pacer Devendra Sadavarti, who did not give Tarun Bharat to score freely. His bowling figures read 4-1-9-1. Amol Sultane took one wicket.
For Tarun Bharat, Arvind Kawale was the top scorer with 38 runs which were laced with five balls to the fence. Pankaj Ganorkar scored 12.
Loksatta achieved the target easily in 13.1 overs losing four wickets.
Man of the match Sadavarti was the top scorer with an unbeaten 26 runs. Uday Rangnath (10) and Daff (11) took their team to victory target. For Tarun Bharat Salotkar took three wickets while Prashant Indurkar took one.
In another match played at Dr Ambedkar College, Deekshabhoomi, Navbharat stunned Sakaal to enter last four.
Sakaal, batting first managed to score only 100 for 8 in 20 overs. Opener Kishor Jamkar was the only impressive batsman who amassed 38 runs. Satish Ingole scored 30 while Om Dhakulkar contributed 16.
For Navbharat, Shrikant Tikle took three wickets while, Manish Shriwas, Ronelle Michael and Mahesh Sarangi took one each.
Navbharat raced to the target in 15 overs losing three wickets. Ajay Kangali was the top scorer with 44 runs while Arun Narsapurkar scored 16. Captain Sarangi remained unbeaten on 16. For Sakaal, Shrikant Bante, Nikhil Gotmare and Rajesh Vyahare took one wicket each. Kangali was named man of the match.
Tuesday is the rest day. The first semi-final will be played between Lokmat and Loksatta on January 21 at Dr Ambedkar College ground at 9 am.