Match 16: 31st July 2021
Teams: Lyca Kovai Kings vs IDream Tiruppur Tamizhans
Place: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Time: 3:30 PM IST
Toss: Lyca Kovai Kings won the toss and elected to bowl first
Lineups:
Lyca Kovai Kings: Ganga Sridhar Raju, J Suresh Kumar (wk), Sai Sudharsan, Ashwin Venkataraman, Shahrukh Khan (c), Abhishek Tanwar, U Mukilesh, N Selva Kumaran, S Ajith Ram, R Divakar, Valliappan Yudheeswaran
IDream Tiruppur Tamizhans: S Dinesh, S Siddharth, Tushar Raheja (wk), Maan Bafna, P Francis Rokins, Aswin Crist, M Rooban Raj, R Rajkumar, M Mohammed (c), Alliraj Karuppusamy, S Mohan Prasath
ITT PULL OFF A HEIST!!!
Fielders spread, eyes wide with caution, batter waiting to hoist it to the stands, bowler starts his run up, batter hits it high, the ball goes high in the skyyyyyy and is caught!!!! A thriller won against a strong side, the ITT notched up it’s second win in the tournament and docked two points to it’s tally. Let’s now head to the post match review of this thriller.
Lyca won the toss and elected to field first. There were few changes to both the sides with Yudheeswaran coming in for the injured K Vignesh. Tiruppur had two changes in Rooban Raj coming in for S Aravind and A Karuppusamy coming in for Gowtham Thamarai Kannan.
Openers S Siddharth and S Dinesh came out for ITT and Abhishek Tanwar started the bowling for Lyca Kovai Kings. Siddharth has been struggling for starts and was having a bad patch and the match was literally a litmus test for him. He took charge by hitting the first ball of his to the fence with a neat cover drive. His other opener S Dinesh also accounted for a boundary in the very first over and 9 runs were put on board. As SIddharth was trying to get set, he was dismissed by Abhishek Tanwar in his second over, caught comfortably by Lyca captain Shahrukh Khan for 11(11).
S Dinesh was joined by Maan Baafna in the middle and the duo started cautiously before S Dinesh took on debutant Yudeeshwaran. He hit 3 fours off his first over, albeit a four coming off a free hit. Maan Baafna on the other end was rotating the strike giving chances for Dinesh to capitalise on the start he gave. Dinesh, now took on lead spinner Ajith Ram smashing him for two boundaries to the fence before he was dismissed, caught comfortably by Shahrukh Khan. The duo raised their 50 run partnership off 46 balls before Dinesh was dismissed. Once Dinesh got dismissed, ITT were in a spot of bother as they lost 2 wickets for 3 runs and were looking for a partnership to be built and came in M Mohammed and Francis Rokins. The duo built on a 73 run partnership with equal contributions from both. The highlight of their partnership was in the 17th over when the duo bashed 23 runs off GS Raju with 3 sixes hoisted to the stands. Francis Rokins was dismissed in the 18th over by Abhishek Tanwar when he tried to slash Tanwar for a four only to be caught by GS Raju. The team had its gears shifted in the wrong direction once this partnership broke as ITT lost their next two wickets in a spare of 3 balls and Aswin Crist slightly pushed the score to end at 162/7 in 20 overs.
Next came the Lyca side, the openers GS Raju and J Suresh Kumar making their way into the middle. GS Raju started the boundary count in his third ball but had his other opener J Suresh Kumar out for a duck when a nipping ball to the fourth stump was caught comfortably by keeper Tushar Raheja. Ashwin Venkatraman joined GS Raju in the middle and they built a good partnership with GS Raju playing the dominant role. He lambasted Aswin Crist in his first over by hitting 2 fours and a six costing him 15 runs. Just when the partnership was slowly developing, captain Mohammed came and took the key wicket of GS Raju, caught comfortably by Francis Rokins.Sai Sudarshan joined A Venkatraman in the middle and he wanted to continue his form. The duo rotated the strike and also cleared the ropes at intervals and raised a 43 run partnership before Maan Baafna came to dismiss A Venkatraman caught by A Karuppusamy. Lyca captain Shahrukh Khan came in the middle and joined Sai Sudarshan and the duo dealt some balls to the fence and to the stands and were building up another partnership before A Crist came and spoilt tha party dismissing Shahrukh caught comfortably by Rajkumar.
U Mukilesh joined Sai Sudarshan and he too helped Sai Sudarshan with some hits to the boundaries and also rotating the strike well. Sai Sudarshan soon reached his fifty off 35 balls and continued to steer the run chase. Rajkumar was reintroduced and a soft nick of the ball back to the bowler saw Sai Sudarshan being run out at the striker’s end, despite his calls for a no run to U Mukilesh. Mukilesh helped the team along with A Tanwar by rotating the strike and hitting boundaries at times. A Tanwar was dismissed by A Karuppuswamy in the penultimate over, easily caught by ITT captain M Mohammed. Mukilesh tried to ease the nerves of the LKK side with a big hit to the stands but was soon dismissed by Mohammed, caught very comfortably by Maan Baafna. The final batter to get dismissed in the final ball was Selva Kumaran and the ITT held their nerves to notch up a thrilling win by 2 runs to pocket their second win in the tournament.
Brief Scores: IDream Tiruppur Tamizhans 162/7 in 20 overs (S Dinesh 39, Francis Rokins 38, M Mohammed 33; Mukilesh 2-7, A Tanwar 2-33, S Ajith Ram 1-19) beat Lyca Kovai Kings 160/8 in 20 overs (Sai Sudarshan 51, GS Raju 30, U Mukilesh 26, A Venkatraman 24; M Mohammed 4-31, Maan Bafna 1-16, A Karuppusamy 1-28, A Crist 1-42) by 2 runs.
Player of the Match: M Mohammed (ITT)
