Ranji trophy: Arup Das grabs Krishna to complete thrilling win

Assam beat Goa by 7 runs

Our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI: Assam registered their third victory of the season in Ranji trophy tie here today. The side in their 7th round match defeated Goa in a nail biting finish tie by seven runs at the ACA Stadium here on Tuesday. Pacer Arup Das, who picked up six wickets in the second innings, declared man of the match.

Arup displayed quality pace bowling in the morning and it was his bowling that made the difference between the two sides. Otherwise it could be a difficult job for Assam to save the match. Arup finished 6-67 in the second innings and collected 9-139 in the match.

Amit Verma and Lakshay, who remained not out yesterday, started cautiously in the morning and tried to move the scoreboard with singles. Arup although removed Amit (74) in the very early stage of the day but Lakshya continued to trouble Assam bowlers. He also made a couple of small but useful partnerships with the tail enders and it really put pressure on Assam. Finally Goa surrendered when Lakshya (73,4X7, 6X2) got out as a last batsman of the team in the second innings. Amulya Pandekar (5) and Krishna Das (2) were the other batsmen who got out today.Apart from Arup, Mukhtar Hussain (3-65) and Ranjeet Mali (1-41) was the other bowlers who collected wickets in the second innings.

Captain Amit Sinha talking to the media person after the game said, “ We (batsmen) didn’t able to perform as per expectation in the match but bowlers have done great job again. Entire credit of the victory should go to them.

Chief Coach Zakaria Zuffri felt team has started to show the sign of maturity. ‘We may lose a few matches in this season but those defeats didn’t make any negative effect on our team. We bounced back. It was our third victory in the season and boys are still hungry. It’s really a good sign.”

With today’s victory Assam collected 20 points from their seven games and they are now in the fourth place in the points table of Elite group ‘C’. In the next game Assam will face Jammu and Kashmir (now at 8th place) and the match will begin in Guwahati from December 30.

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