thane blind and playing cricket yes and enjoying it as much as anyone else would do in fact for the past ten years cricket by the blind is being played from school level to the state level the tournament played at the central maidan over the weekend was stiffly contested by eight teams from thane mumbai nasik amravati marathawada pune sholapur and nagpur and was won by pune mainly due to swapnil wagh who was man of the match as well as man of the series one may well be wondering as to how does this happen and you will be forgiven for not knowing but the game is played with a white ball which rattles it rolls and does not bounce and has to be pitched well up and is bowled underarm the distance between the wickets is the same but the ball has to be pitched beyond the half way mark the hundred per cent blind players bat with a runner and are not allowed to field but the ones with a lesser vision field and run their own runs the selection for the maharashtra team will be on the basis of these matches for this tournament the first prize was rupees 750000 sponsored by salgaonkar sports club and the second prize was rupees 300000 sponsored by milind patankar chairman of the standing committee the trophies were sponsored by kiran salgaonkar in the memory of his late father dr vijay kumar salgaonkar the umpires were nishikant roopawate and magan rathod the highest score was recorded by amravati 220 against mumbai with anil belasare scoring the only century of the match 105 not out he is completely blind in one eye mumbai were all out for 110 in the semifinals pune versus nagpur pune won making 113 with swapnil wagh making 24 not out and bowling nagpur out for 70 sachin claimed 3 wickets in the first over its self in the finals pune piled on 92 in 6 overs with swapnil again scoring well with 37 not out and claimed 4 wickets to ensure punes victory the game was initially played with 15 overs a side but got reduced a bit later due to lack of time the final match was played with 6 overs each side now from these players the maharashtra team will be formed to play on the national level