Harris Shield: Al Barkaat ride on Harshvardhan's ton

Al Barkaat's Harshvardhan Pandey celebrates his century against IES New English during the Harris Shield final. Pic/Bipin Kokate

Harshvardhan Pandey scored a patient century to put defending champions Al Barkaat MMI (Kurla) in a commanding position on Day Two of the three-day Mumbai Schools Sports Association-organised Harris Shield (U-16 ) final against IES New English (Bandra) at Bombay Gymkhana yesterday.

The Bandra school ended the day at 36-1 in reply to Al Barkaat's 371-7 declared. Resuming on 253-5, Al Barkaat's overnight batsmen Harshvardhan and Himanshu Singh began cautiously, scoring just 24 runs in 10.4 overs before the latter was cleaned up by left-arm pacer Shivam Kanojiya.

Harshvardhan, batting at No. 6 position, brought up his century off 253 balls in the 111th over just before lunch break. Southpaw No. 8 batsman Jeevan Karlekar (45 not out) gave good support to Harshvardhan as the Al Barkaat duo took advantage of the tired IES Bandra outfit to put on a 94-run stand for the seventh wicket.

Harshvardhan's 306-ball 121, laced with 17 boundaries, ended when he was caught at cover by Anurag Nair off Manan Bhatt. Al Barkaat declared their innings with the dismissal.

Talking about his slow-paced innings, Harshvardhan said: "IES bowlers were bowling a stump-to-stump line, which made it difficult to play the shots. I didn't want to throw away my wicket. Losing a wicket would have added extra pressure on our team."

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