Nairobi Lohana Youth League under the captainship of Deepesh Modi, younger brother to Hitesh Modi, won the recently concluded Lohana Sports Cricket Six a Side Championship in Nairobi beating Kampala by 12 runs in an exciting final.

Nairobi batted first and scored 51 runs in their five overs thanks to mainly to Sandeep Kantaria (15*), who was given able assistance by Gopal Savani (8*) and Nilesh Lakhana (7*) at the end of the innings.

Captain Raj Pabari lead the Kampala chase with a stylish 15*, but the rest of the team failed to give him the support necessary and they only managed to reach 39 all out. Deepesh Ganatra was the main destroyer for Nairobi, bowling well for his 2 wickets for 8 runs while Deepesh Modi collected 1 wicket for 6 runs.

Earlier, Nakuru gave Nairobi a big scare in the semi finals when they took the match right down to the last ball. Sanjay Gandhi (15*) and Mehul Sanghani (15*) played well for Nakuru as they set up a tough target for the home team to chase. Sandeep Kantaria (15*) was Nairobi’s main run scorer, but Ronit Kanani was the hero as he hit a boundary on the final delivery of the match to secure a nail biting 1 wicket win for Nairobi.

Kampala scored a major upset in the other semi final when they beat Mombasa by 14 runs. Raj Pabari again the main aggressor with the bat for Kampala with 15 not out. Aashish Karia top scored with 13 for Mombasa, but it was not enough to catch the upbeat Ugandans.

Nairobi’s winning team comprised: Deepesh Modi (cpt), Sandeep Kantaria (awarded Best Batsman of the tournament), Gopal Savani, Nilesh Lakhani, Deepesh Ganatra, Sameer Raja, Sachin Dawda and Ronik Kanani.

The Nairobi Team have now won the tournament three times in a row and will be looking forward to a successful title defence when the next festival is held in Dar es Salaam under the umbrella of Dar es Salaam Lohana Community.

The festival was officiated by Kenyan Umpires Lalji Bhudia, David Odhiambo and Subhash Modi, one of the founders of the festival which has been running since 1974. Scorer for the event was Kenya's Himanshu Patel.

A very successful four-day Lohana Sports & Cultural Festival ended in a grand style and with flying colours on Tuesday night in Nairobi. Organised by Chairman Reshma Raikundalia, Secretary General Kamal Sanghani, Festival Secretary Madhvi Dawda and Kaushikbhai Manek, Chairman of Nairobi Lohana, the tournament leaves Dar es Salaam with a tough act to follow.