Hansraj beats Shardashram to take home Giles Shield

Mumbai, Feb 1: Hansraj Moraji scored an emphatic victory against Shardashram Vidyamandir in the finals of the Kotak Life Insurance MSSA Giles Shield Cricket Tournament played at the Shivaji Park Gymkhana, here today.

They won the match on the basis of the first innings lead.

After taking a first innings lead with the third day overnight score of 343/7, Hansraj batted till a little after lunch to amass a huge total of 446 taking a 164 run lead. The lead could have been reduced; had Shardashram pepped up their fielding. They dropped many important catches behind the wickets. At lunch Hansraj was 431-8, Devgan Mishra batted well for his team and scored 66 runs off 102 balls.

Shardashram had reached the Giles finals after 10 years, but was already in a fix as they allowed their opponents the first innings lead. But things got worse for them as they lost quick wickets and were already 27/2 at tea. After going down in the first innings, Shardashram had to look to win the match or their opponents would win on the basis of their first innings score. With only a few hours to go in the day all hope was lost for Shardashram and their players in the pavilion had already begun to acknowledge the loss.

Hansraj coach was very happy with his team's performance ''After losing the finals last year the victory has great importance for this team. We will now look ahead; few of our players like Jaideep and Shivam will feature in the Parle Cup, where we will look to make our presence felt.'' Brief scores: Shardashram 282 all out and 92/4 in 44 overs (Raj Gohil 34 (71) vs Hansraj Morarji 446 all out in 153.3 overs (Jaideep Pardesi 180 , Devgan Mishra 66 (102). Hansraj Morarji won the match on basis of 1 st innings lead.

UNI