Haque hundred in vain as Jajpur lose

Sheikh Azharul Haque’s century went in vain as Jajpur lost to Balasore by one wicket in a group league match of the Inter-District Under-19 Cricket Tournament at Udala, Mayurbhanj on Saturday. With this win Balasore advanced to the super league, which is set to commence at Cuttack on February 24. Cuttack ‘A’ and ‘B’, Bhubaneswar ‘A’, Rourkela and Jharsuguda also entered the super league by winning their respective group matches at different places. Jharsuguda caused an upset by defeating Bhubaneswar-B by 28 runs. Brief scores: At Phulbani: Jharsuguda 208/10 in 48.5 overs (Sailendra Ram 71: G Mohapatra 2/26) beat Bhubaneswar-B 185/10 in 45.4 overs (Gaurav Mohapatra 53: Mandeep Singh 4/36) by 28 runs. At Udala: Jajpur 237/7 in 50 overs (SA Haque 101, Subasish Jena 48) lost to Balasore 240/9 in 41.5 overs (Jitendra Das 52: Saroj Nanda 4/9) by 1 wkt. At Khurda: Khurda 182/10 in 45.1 overs (Debasis Mohanty 69: Pradipta Nayak 3/25) lost to Cuttack-B 185/5 in 42.1 overs (Himanshu Mohanty 43, S Rout 35 n.o) by 5 wkts. At Angul: Cuttack-A 218/10 in 49.1 overs (Puspasis Mohanty 44: Smruti Ranjan Mohanty 3/52) beat Kalahandi 114/10 in 33.2 overs (Debasis Parida 5/24) by 104 runs. At Deogarh: Sundargarh 157/10 in 43.4 overs (Sanoj Mahananda 37: Santanu Jena 4/20) lost to Rourkela 158/6 in 33.1 overs (Santosh Oram 50, Ajay Rout 45: Jaffer Khan 3/41) by 4 wkts. At Damanjodi: Bhubaneswar-A 251/8 in 50 overs (Smruti Ranjan Biswal 63, Siddhant Ray 50) beat Koraput 195/10 in 44.4 overs (Shankar Rout 44: Sumitosh Praharaj 3/47) by 56 runs.