Shoaib Manager struck an undefeated 113 to pilot Rail Wheel Factory to the semifinals of The Hindu Trophy cricket tournament.
At the NRA (T) grounds on Tuesday, RWF defeated HAL Sports Club on better run rate in a contest they would have won most comfortably in any case had it gone the full distance.
RWF’s imposing 245 for two from their 30 overs was based around Manager’s blistering century, with Sunil Kumar Jain doing his bit in contributing 63. A required rate of eight an over was always going to be a hard ask for HAL, who were set a revised target of 229 in 28 overs when rain interrupted their chase.
HAL had slumped to 127 for eight in 25.3 overs, undermined by Azghar Pasha (3/6) when bad light forced play to be called off, sparing them the ignominy of a heavy outright defeat.
RWF will now meet State Bank of Mysore in Wednesday’s first semifinal at the Chinnaswamy stadium. The Bankmen were too strong for DTDC Sports Club as they cruised to a comfortable seven-wicket triumph.
The other semifinal, at the same venue in the afternoon, will pit Canara Bank against Central Excise and Customs. While Canara scored a regulation eight-wicket win over Syndicate Bank, Excise edged Vijaya Bank by two runs in a high-scoring thriller that yielded almost 400 runs.
Brief scores: Central Excise and Customs: 198/7 in 30 overs (Sachin M Kadadevarmath 36, Devraj T Patil 58; Santosh K Vadeyaraj 3-35) bt Vijaya Bank: 196/8 in 30 overs (BA Vinay 35, KM Aiyappa 26, AR Mahesh 28, Srivatsa Puranik 33; D Xavier 2-33).
Syndicate Bank: 131 all out in 30 overs (Rajesh Kamath 45, S Muralidhra 29; P Srinivasamurthy 3-19, B Rajashekar 2-20) lt to Canara Bank: 136/2 in 15.3 overs (C Raghu 45, Somashekar Shiraguppi 55, Raju Bhatkal 35 n.o.).
DTDC Sports Club: 136/5 in 30 overs (Yogesh T 46; Anand P Katti 2-24) lt to State Bank of Mysore: 137/3 in 21 overs (C Sasi Kumar 27, Vijay K Madyalkar 32, MK Manjunath 40 n.o.).
Rail Wheel Factory: 245/2 in 30 overs (Sunil Kumar Jain 63, Shoaib Manager 113 n.o., P Yogesh 27 n.o.) bt HAL Sports Club: 127/8 in 25.3 overs (Sambaji 39; Azghar Pasha 3-6) on better run rate.
