Shillong, April 16: Meghalaya held off Arunachal Pradesh to secure a draw after their Col CK Nayudu Trophy plate group match was taken to the fourth and final day on Friday in Cuttack.
On 69/1 overnight in their second innings, leading by 150, Arunachal were bundled out for 172 today, with Bipin Kumar Ray claiming 3/48 for Meghalaya, while Abhishek Kumar took 2/33, Adarsh Joshi 2/48 and Sudhir Sahani 1/21. Agreas Chamcham Sangma ended with 1/19, with his lone scalp coming yesterday.
That left Meghalaya 254 to win, which seemed unlikely as there were only around 60 overs available to get them in. The chase started out almost as bad as it could get, as the team lost their top three batters for ducks, but Swastic Chettri (27) and Joydeepan Deb (40) made 69 for the fourth wicket.
Another mini-collapse saw both these set batters dismissed with the score on 73 but, thankfully, Md Asif Khan (23) and Joshi (12) were able to string together another partnership that ate up a lot of overs. Joshi faced 52 deliveries for his dozen runs, while Khan batted for 57.
The same was the case with the tailenders further down – Agreas (3) battled for 24 balls and Ray (5 not out) 37 as Meghalaya finished on 118/8 after 60 overs to secure a point, which puts them fourth in the five-team table. Meghalaya will next face Mizoram from 19 April.
