Dubai International Academy (DIA) Wolves and the Elite English School won their matches of the CSS Homeward Bound Inter-School Cricket Championship at weekend.
Hrithik Bhatia was the star performer in DIA’s 59-run win over the English Language School in Group A. Coming in to bat at 54-6, Bhatia played a sensible knock to steer DIA to a defendable total of 146 which at one stage looked beyond their reach.
Bhatia’s knock of 29 came off 34 balls. Only Abdullah Murad (22) was able to lend some support.
Bhatia later came back to strike two crucial blows as English Language faltered in their run chase despite a superb start from opener Ammar Bajwa (30). Shahzab Naeem (17) was the other player to get into double figures but the rest just caved in to some good bowling.
In Group B, Elite English beat Winchester School by three wickets. Elite English’s bowlers did well to bowl out Winchester School for 113 as Naveen Shivnani (3/22), Karan Menon (2/38) and Harsith Kumar (2/11) maintained a tight leash. Winchester’s Marlon Malcolm hit 22 but that was not good enough as the rest of the batsmen collapsed.
In reply, Elite English put on a 56-run opening stand between Jaydeep Jain (36) and Athiq Syed (28). Wickets fell quickly but they hit their target in 20.2 overs.
In other matches, Arab Unity beat Indian High School by 70 runs.
Irtiza Ali was the mastermind of Arab Unity’s triumph with a match-winning knock of 72.