Air India beat IOC to enter BCCI Corporate Trophy final

BANGALORE: Air India kept their date with the BCCI Corporate Trophy final on September 8 but just about. In a semifinal where fortunes fluctuated, defending champions Indian Oil Corporation, who had made the last four stage without having played a single ball in the washed out league phase at Visakhapatnam, almost scraped their way through to the title round.
But their batting had let them down in the first half of the game on Tuesday, and the target of 186 from the allotted 50 overs was finally scaled down by Air India in the 48th over.Perhaps it was the slowish nature of the Chinnaswamy Stadium strip that made for an exciting game and allowed two left-arm bowlers to take centre stage. Strangely one was a pacer and the other a spinner but that in a way summed up the proceedings.
The two protagonists on either side were AI's big-made Pradeep Sangwan and IOC's small-built Rajesh Pawar. If Sangwan (9.3-1-29-5) was successful in each of his three spells, spinner Pawar's lone spell all but resulted in the grounding of AI. Coming on in the sixth over after AI's very-much-in-a-hurry openers Paul Valthaty (46, 58b, 7x4, 1x6) and Robin Uthappa (17) had got off to a brisk start (45 from 5.4 overs), Pawar (10-2-35-3) used well the lack of pace in the track as well as the big albeit slow turn available.
While Uthappa needed no help from the bowler as such, his choosing to play back to a pitched up delivery in an attempt to force the issue just at a time he should have settled down, costing him dear, Pawar's other dismissals, Valthaty and Mohd Kaif were well thought out. Valthaty, who again seemed intent to prove that he prefers the T20 format, throwing his bat around at most deliveries, was suckered into a catch at cover while Kaif succumbed at bat-pad. At that point had IOC skipper Wasim Jaffer, only on Monday retained as Mumbai skipper, held on to a nick from Rajat Bhatia, things could have turned out differently.
Bhatia (13, 44b) didn't make much but he steadied matters enough to allow AI's batting depth and experience in the form of their eighth-wicket pair of Dhawal Kulkarni (25 not out, 42b, 3x4) and Ajit Chandila (26 not out, 45b, 1x4) to come through. There were no boundaries scored for nearly 25 overs in the middle of the innings, Kulkarni upping the ante only in the 46th over, but then the target was never far away. Kulkarni's unbroken 54-run association with Chandila finally sealed it for AI.
In the morning, it was Sangwan all the way after Chandila, bowling his off-breaks, had provided the first breakthrough. Having been put into bat, IOC found none of their men rising to the occasion, perhaps the lack of match practice doing them in. Only a ninth-wicket stand of 63 between an attacking Amit Dani (50, 69b, 4x4, 3x6) and Balwinder Singh Sandhu (23, 37b, 2x4) gave them sort of total, one which Pawar and his fellow bowlers Paresh Patel and Amit Dani did their best with but to no avail.
AI will take on State Bank of Hyderabad in the final on Thursday at the same venue.
Brief scores:
IOL: 185 all out in 45.3 overs (Amit Dani 50; Pradeep Sangwan 5-29, Ajit Chandila (2-33) lost to AI: 187/7 in 47.2 overs (Paul Valthaty 46, Hrishikesh Kanitkar 41, Dhawal Kulkarni 25 n.o., Ajit Chandila 26 n.o.; Rajesh Pawar 3-35, Paresh Patel 2-28, Amit Dani 2-25).