Match 12: 28th July 2021
Teams: Salem Spartans vs Chepauk Super Gillies
Place: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Time: 3:30 PM IST
Toss: Chepauk Super Gillies won the toss and elected to bowl first
Lineups:
Salem Spartans: S Abishiek, Gopinath, Ravi Karthikeyan, Vijay Shankar, Daryl Ferrario (c), Akshay Srinivasan, Murugan Ashwin, Umashankar Sushil (wk), B Praanesh, M Ganesh Moorthi, G Periyaswamy
Chepauk Super Gillies: Kaushik Gandhi (c), N Jagadeesan (wk), S Sujay, Rajagopal Sathish, Uthirasamy Sasidev, Sonu Yadav, S Radhakrishnan, Harish Kumar, Jaganath Sinivas, Manimaran Siddharth, R Alexander
SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE
The famous proverb is from the Rabbit and the tortoise race which we studied as a young kid and still use in our life.The same way, the match went yesterday between the defending champions and the new franchise.
Chepauk won the toss and elected to bowl and had one change in Dev Rahul making way for S Radhakrishnan. Salem remained unchanged and wanted to continue their dominance from the last match and prove their worth in this tournament. KH Gopinath and S Abhishiek opened for the Salem side while Sonu Yadav opened the bowling for the Chepauk side.
Gopinath started the proceedings well with dispatching the first ball of the innings to the fence and his opening partner Abhishiek too followed Gopinath’s approach and smashed another four from his blade in the same over contributing 9 runs to their team. Jaganath Srinivas bowled the third over of the innings and gave a free hit opportunity to KH Gopinath by overstepping and Gopinath put it to good use by dispatching the free hit ball to the fence. Gopinath continued rollicking by hitting a four of the last ball of the same over. The other opener, S Abhishiek had 4 lives saved in the form of run outs due to poor display of fielding by the CSG team and Abhishiek was unlucky the fifth time when Sonu Yadav dismissed him caught by R Satish in the last over of the powerplay. On the other hand, Gopinath was smashing whenever he got chances. At the end of powerplay, Salem were 45/1.
R Satish came back in the 8th over and dismissed the other opener KH Gopinath who was struggling with cramps due to the Chennai heat easily caught by Chepauk captain K Gandhi. The ever reliable Vijay Shankar joined R Karthikeyan in the middle. The CSG bowlers were literally controlling the Salem side by not allowing them to hit boundaries. Lead spinner for CSG, M Siddharth came for his third over and had Karthikeyan dismissed caught easily by R Satish. Captain of Salem Spartans, Daryl Ferrario again came to the rescue act with Vijay Shankar and they built a partnership of 59 in 46 balls before Sonu Yadav returned for his second spell and dismissed Vijay Shankar with a comfortable catch offered by him to K Gandhi. AKshay Srinvasan joined Daryl in the middle and walked back to the pavilion immediately with Sonu Yadav rattling his stumps. Daryl took on Harish Kumar by hoisting him for a six before he was castled by rattling his stumps by the same Harish Kumar. Harish Kumar continued to account for his dismissals by dismissing M Ashwin caught by Sonu Yadav and the Salem side ended on 142/7 in their quota of 20 overs.
Next came the CSG opening pair of K Gandhi and N Jagadeesan and spinner Ganesh Morrthi was introduced in the first over. Seen the same pattern somewhere? You guessed it right, they followed MSD's trick of introducing a spinner in the first over when there is a left hander, but the situation here was the opposite. Left arm spinner against two right handers and it did work wonders. Cap K Gandhi was dismissed off his third ball, caught very comfortably by opposite captain Daryll Ferrario. Captain catching captain!!! S Sujay joined Jagadeesan in the middle and was trying to find gaps to dispatch the ball to the boundary. G Periyaswamy was introduced in the 4th over of the second innings and he dismissed Sujay, caught comfortably by Ganesh Moorthi. S Radhakrishnan joined Jagdeesan in the middle and didn’t last long when Periyaswamy dismissed Radhakrishnan for a golden duck, plumb before the stumps. At the end of the powerplay, CSG were 26/3.
R Satish joined Jagadeesan in the middle and soon got out offering an easy catch to A Srinivasan in the slips bowled by M Ashwin. Sasidev joined Jagadeesan in the middle and broke the shackles by hoisting one over to the stands in Ganesh Moorthi’s final over. Jagadeesan followed suit in the same fashion in Moorthi’s final over and hoisted a six off his over. The duo were responsible in raising a 50-run partnership with equal contribution from both in rotating the strike as well as hitting boundaries with aplomb. Jagadeesan soon reached his second half century of the season with a six to the stands and was dismissed immediately, neatly caught by Daryl Ferraio off M Ashwin bowling.
Sasidev was joined by all rounder Harish Kumar who followed the directions of his team mate Jaggi and hoisted boundaries to the fence and to the stands and relieved pressure off the team in the tight chase happening at Chepauk. Vijay Shankar soon came and removed Sasidev rattling off his stumps, but was treated with a bye-bye sending by Harish Kumar who lofted him to the stands over long on. Jaganath Srinivas finished the proceedings for Chepauk with a four and ensured Chepauk docked two points to itself to go up the points table.
Brief Scores: Salem Spartans 142/7 in 20 overs (Daryl S Ferrario 39, KH Gopinath 33, Vijay SHankar 32; Sonu Yadav 3-21, Harish Kumar 2-39, Satish 1-18, M Siddharth 1-22) lost to Chepauk Super Gillies 145/6 in 19.2 overs (N Jagadeesan 52, U Sasidev 42, Harish Kumar 27*; G Periyaswamy 2-28, M Ashwin 2-26, Vijay Shankar 1-29, M Ganesh Moorthi 1-27) by 4 wickets.
Player of the Match: N Jagadeesan (CSG)
