Odisha team wins East Zone cricket tournament for the Blind

Bhubaneswar: Odisha visually impaired team won the Sixth East Zone Cricket Tournament for the Blind at Jadavpur in Kolkata. Odisha have won all the editions of the tournament. Overs were reduced in all the matches of the tourney because of heavy rain.

Odisha reached final by beating Tripura and Jharkhand by 72 runs and 27 runs respectively with Lingaraj Routray and Sukhram Majhi getting the Man of the Match awards in first two games.

In the final, Odisha defeated Bengal by 77 runs to lift the trophy. Batting first, Odisha scored 185/2 in stipulated 10 overs with Lingaraj Routray scoring unbeaten 80 runs and Pankaj Bhue and Raghunath Badnayak contributing an unbeaten 40 and 36 respectively.

In reply, Bengal could manage to score only 108/7 in their given 10 overs. Pankaj Bhue scalped three wickets for Odisha.

Odisha skipper Jafar Iqbal and Lingaraj Routray were adjudged Man of the Tournament in B1 and B3 category respectively.

The state team qualified for the 24th All India Cricket Tournament for the Blind to be held in Mumbai from October 30 to November 3.