Don Bosco’s Shravan misses ton by a whisker

Don Bosco’s Shravan Mhatre after his 75-ball 96 yesterday. Pic/Suresh Karkera

Don Bosco's (Matunga) Shravan Mhatre played a valuable innings (75-ball 96), but missed out a century by a mere four runs as his team beat Dr Antonio Da Silva (Dadar) in a Pool B league match of the MSSA Harris Shield inter-school cricket tournament at the National CC pitch, Cross Maidan, on Tuesday.

Coming in to bat with the score reading 128 for four, Shravan straightaway went for his shots. Batting on 91 and with one over remaining, he hit a boundary to long-on and followed it up with a single. Then, from the non-striker's end, he watched teammate Arjun Kale play two dot balls. And when Arjun played and missed again, Shravan went for a non-existent single only to see Antonio Da Silva wicketkeeper Sahil Nakwa dislodge the bails, catching him out of his crease. Shravan hit 17 fours and one six as Don Bosco posted 287 for seven off the stipulated 45 overs. In reply, the Dadar side were bowled out for 125 in 36.3 overs. "I'm not too disappointed at missing my century. Instead, I'm happy to get a big knock on my Harris Shield debut. This innings will give me confidence for the remaining matches," a modest Shravan told mid-day.

There were two centurions elsewhere. Devendra Vansh cracked 118 runs (75 balls, 10x4, 4x6) while teammate Aviral Dubey claimed 5-31 as Shardashram Vidyamandir English beat VK Krishna Menon School (Borivli) by 200 runs in a Group D match at Cross Maidan. And Aaryan Sakpal of Swami Vivekanand International (Borivli) notched up a quickfire 101 (42 balls 14x4, 5x6) to steer his team to a mammoth 310-run win over Bombay Scottish in a Group C encounter at New Hind CC. Batting first, SVIS amassed a stupendous 420-5 off their 45 overs.