Chandila, Rawal take Collage to final

Pramod Chandila and Vaibhav Rawal displayed all their experience in domestic and club cricket to help Collage Sports Club defeat a strong Delhi Challengers (DC) by three wickets in the second semi-final of the 48th Goswami Ganesh Dutt Memorial Cricket Tournament and set up a title clash with Goat XI.

The duo joined hands after Collage lost two wickets inside the first six overs while chasing 292 put up by DC.

When they split in the 30th over after Chandila (109 off 92 balls) was dismissed, they had added 187 for the third wicket and brought the equation down to 64 runs off 64 deliveries.

“We wanted to stretch the partnership as far as possible and see what happened towards the end. The total was not that challenging. You felt like chasing it, if you batted with responsibility,” said Chandila, who will be 30 next month.

He hit seven sixes — two in cover, four straight, one over mid-wicket.

“I milked the spinners the most and could play my shots,” added the Faridabad player who has represented Haryana and Bengal at the first-class level.

The left-handed Rawal, who was Delhi’s second-highest run-getter in Ranji Trophy last season, batted for 56 balls to score 74 runs. He hit three sixes and seven fours.

“Pitch had become a bit slow after so many matches in the tournament and the ball was gripping. So you had to get your eye in first before reading the pace of the pitch. Calculation was the key,” said the 29-year-old Rawal.

Two of his sixes came straight down the ground and one over mid-wicket.

The DC total (292/6 in 40 overs) was built on a century by skipper Kaif Ahmed (101 off 91) and Tanmay Agarwal (84 off 79). In their case too, the team had lost two early wickets though this was too early.

They both added 138 for the third wicket to put the team back on track. Kaif stayed there till the end.

“After the openers were dismissed early, I stayed on, realising that the wicket will get better,” said the player who has represented Bengal in white-ball cricket.

“The wicket wasn’t that good for batting, but we bowled a bit badly in the middle overs. The game drifted away from us [when Chandila and Rawal were batting] but we came back picking three quick wickets,” added the 25-year-old.

However, DC lower-order’s failure earlier to put a total in excess of 300 cost Ahmed’s team the match as Collage reached 295/7 with four balls to spare.