Springfield’s Palai and Rai on song in Harris Shield

Shubham Palai (left) and Devansh Rai of Springfield at Bombay Gymkhana yesterday. Pic/Atul Kamble

All-rounders Shubham Palai (3 for 26) and Devansh Rai (2 for 74), both 15, continued to play inspirational roles which enabled Springfield High School (Khar) restrict General Education Academy (Chembur) to 174 all out in 73 overs in the first innings, of their two-day semi-final of the MSSA inter-school Harris Shield boys' U-16 cricket tournament at the Bombay Gymkhana on Tuesday.

In response, Springfield reached 19 for the loss of one wicket in the seven overs possible from the remaining 24 minutes of play before stumps were drawn for the day.

Last week, Shubham had cracked an unbeaten double century (205 runs) and Devansh contributed 107 runs in their big win over VK Krishna Menon (Borivli) in the third quarter-final play-off league match.

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The General Education batters were unable to apply themselves and stay long at the wicket on a good batting surface. Opener Shardul Fagare (28) and middle-order bat Aayush Shinde (47) played well and got good starts, but were unable to build a long innings. The failure of General Education batsmen to score big and put up a substantial score on the board will hurt them if Springfield manage to surpass their total to take the crucial first innings lead when second day's play resumes today.

In the second semi-final, Swami Vivekanand International School (Borivli) bowled out IES New English (Bandra) for 176 in 74.5 overs in their first innings. Dhaviet Prakash 37, Lakshya Jhawar and Yash Rawat, both scored 30 each to provide respectability to the total.

Swami Vivekanand International's bowlers Aditya Songhare and Arnav Lad picked up three wickets each. In reply, Swami Vivekanand were on 23 without loss in the remaining seven overs before close of play.