Saurabh Tiwary at his best at Mecon stadium. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, April 9: Compared to the nail-biting quarter final matches played yesterday, the semi-finals of the Twenty20 cricket tournament for the Elite Celebration Cup turned out to be a damp squib at Mecon stadium today.

In the first semi-final between Telcon and Jharkhand Cricket Academy (JAC), the JAC team scored a somewhat healthy 142 for the loss of seven wickets.

Nikhil Sinha, maintaining a good form in this tournament, scored yet another half-century, 52 runs off 36 balls with the help of five boundaries and a six. Telcon’s Vinod took three wickets for 20 runs.

Chasing a target of 143, Ishank Jaggi of Telcon helped his team sail smoothly into the final with his unbeaten 58 runs, which took 47 balls and contained seven hits to the boundary and one six.

After losing his fellow opener Hamiyar at the score of 37, Ishank and Madhusudan (39 runs off 35 balls) took the score to 114, when the latter got out.

In walked Saurabh Tiwary and made a brisk, unbeaten 23, which comprised three boundaries and a well-timed six, which incidentally was the winning shot.

Telcon won the match by eight wickets and Ishank Jaggi was adjudged the man of the match.

In the second semi-final, the Mecon batsmen disappointed as they were bowled out for a paltry 115 runs in 19.4 overs.

In fact, the ninth over of the Mecon innings turned out to be decisive as International Auto’s captain Shahid Khan took two wickets off consecutive balls to get rid of Arun Vidyarthi and Subhash Chatterjee to leave Mecon gasping at four wickets down for a mere 57 runs.

The other veteran former Ranji all-rounder Anwar Mustafa continued to be in good form as he hit some delicate cuts and powerful drives through cover in his dominating 27 runs.

Sanjeev Kumar scored 23 runs and Manoj Singh, 30 runs. Shahid Khan, who finished with three wickets for 21 runs, added another man of the match award to his kitty today.

In reply, International Auto,Jamshedpur, batsmen took full advantage of some fielding lapses by the Mecon fielders and reached their target in 18.5 overs for the loss of four wickets only.

For the Jamshedpur team Mohshin Khan (28 runs), Deepak Kumar Singh (28 not out) and Subroto Bahera (21 not out) batted sensibly to enable their team’s entry in the finals to be played tomorrow.

The winners tomorrow would walk away with Rs 51,000 in cash.