National English School's joy of competing with stronger teams from Mumbai city was short-lived after they were knocked out of the Coca-Cola Cup U-16 inter-school cricket tournament yesterday.


Tejas Agarwal's all-round show (80 & 4-47) for National went in vain.
Pic/Atul Kamble

The Virar school suffered a 28-run defeat after being bowled out for 192 in 39.1 overs, chasing Anjuman-I-Islam's (Urdu) total of 220 at Cross Maidan.

Coach Santosh Pingulkar rued lack of quality exposure for his school: "We don't get the kind of exposure the kids in Mumbai city get.

The level of cricket in our area (beyond Dahisar) isn't great. Opportunities to play against good teams from Mumbai are very rare for us."

All rounder Tejas Agarwal (80 & 4-47) was dejected after losing in the pre-quarters. "As our school comes under the Mira Road-Boisar area, we don't get to play against stronger teams in Mumbai very often. This was a good opportunity, but we missed out on it."