Match 18: 1st August 2021
Teams: Salem Spartans vs Ruby Trichy Warriors
Place: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Time: 3:30 PM IST
Toss: Ruby Trichy Warriors won the toss and elected to bowl first
Lineups:
Salem Spartans: S Abhishek, Akshay Srinivasan, Daryl Ferrario (c), Vijay Shankar, Umashankar Sushil (wk), Murugan Ashwin, Ravi Karthikeyan, M Ganesh Moorthi, AVR Rathnam, Lokesh Raj, G Periyaswamy
Ruby Trichy Warriors: Amit Sathvik, Santosh Shiv, Adithya Ganesh (wk), Muhammed Adnan Khan, Nidhish Rajagopal, Antony Dhas, Akash Sumra, M Mathivannan, Saravan Kumar, Rahil Shah (c), M Poiyamozhi
STEADY SHIP SAILING FOR RTW
A cheetah or a lion or tiger always waits for its prey, plans and then slowly fixes it’s target, looks for the chance and pounces on the prey and captures it. A clear strategy and proper planning always yields results and that was the case with the RTW in TNPL 2021. Clearly the underdogs of the tournament with not so many big stars from the TN circuit, the performance the youngsters from RTW give with an experienced captain shows how matured and perfect they are. C’mon, let’s head to the post match review between RTW and SS.
Ruby Trichy Warriors won the toss and elected to field first. Both the sides had one change each, Ruby bringing in debutant Santosh Shiv for K Mukunth and Salem bringing in AVR Rathnam for M Suganesh. Openers Akshay Srinivasan and S Abhishiek started for Salem and Saravan Kumar opened the bowling attack for Ruby Trichy Warriors. Akshay Srinvasan started with a beautiful cover drive to the fence and started the boundary count for the team and also notched up the scoreboard with a bang. He continued the same with RTW captain Rahil Shah and also ensured the runs kept flowing by rotating the strike with Abhishiek. The ball from the pacers of RTW quite kept finding themselves racing to the fence of the ground with shots being hit with aplomb by the Salem batters. But, the dream hit of Akshay Srinivasan got halted when the captain Rahil Shah came again to dismiss him with a quickie, easily caught by Akash Sumra.
U Sushil joined Abhishiek in the middle and the RTW bowlers didn’t let them score as A Srinivasan did. They did keep the screws tightened well that it literally choked the batters to score boundaries. The duo tried to keep the scoreboard ticking before the powerhouse of RTW, Anthony Dhas came to strike. He dismissed U Sushil plumb before the stumps. Vijay Shankar joined Abhishiek in the middle. Soon, Abhishiek joined his teammates in the pavilion when his stumps were rattled by pacer Poiyamozhi and the downfall of the Salem side started. Mathivannan came for his second spell and dismissed the reliable Vijay Shankar, caught comfortably by Rahil Shah. M Ashwin joined Salem captain Daryl Ferrario in the middle.
The duo built a small partnership of 20 runs with some boundaries before Ferrario was dismissed by Rahil Shah off Saravan Kumar. Ravi Karthikeyan joined M Ashwin and the duo like their teammates struggled to make runs through boundaries and had their strike rotated at times to have the scoreboard ticking before medium pacer A Sumra rattled the stumps of Karthikeyan. The team could score only 23 runs in their final overs losing two more wickets in Ganesh Moorthi and M Ashwin, dismissed by Poiyamozhi and Saravan Kumar, The last over saw two boundaries hit by Lokesh Raj and AVR Rathnam and the Salem Spartans put up on 116/8 on the board.
Next came the RTW batters Santosh Shiv and Amit Sathvik. Amit Sathvik started the boundary count for the team in the second over bowled by G Periyaswamy. Amit Sahvik then took on Ganesh Moorthi when he hit him for a four and a six off the same over. The other opener helped in rotating the strike with Amit before he got into the attack mode of hitting the bowlers to the fence but was short lived when Periyaswamy dismissed him caught comfortably by S Abhishiek. The very next ball saw the other opener dismissed albeit a run out coordinated by S Abhishiek and keeper Sushil. Muhammed Adnan Khan and Nidish Rajagopal were the new batters in the middle and the duo kept the scoreboard ticking by rotating the strike. Adnan Khan came out of the defensive mode and took on the fiery pacer Lokesh Raj with a six and four in his first over before Lokesh Raj striked back dismissing Adnan Khan with a stunning pluck by M Ashwin. Nidish Rajagopal was joined by Adithya Ganesh in the middle and the duo striked some into the fence at intervals and also rotated strike before Periyaswamy came for his second spell and struck, this time dismissing the set batter Nidish Rajagopal with a stunner of a one handed catch by keeper Sushil to his left.
Anthony Dhas joined Adithya Ganesh and it was upto the duo to take the team past the finish line and they lived upto the expectations. They rotated the strike, hit boundaries with ease and ensured no further wickets fell and comfortably won the game with a monstrous six from the blade of Anthony Dhas and sitting atop the points table like a king!!!
Brief Scores: Salem Spartans 116/8 in 20 overs (M Ashwin 21, A Srinivasan 19; M Poiyamozhi 2-25, Saravana Kumar 2-26, Rahil Shah 1-16, Akash Sumra 1-11) lost to Ruby Trichy Warriors 120/4 in 18.3 overs (Adithya Ganesh 28*, Anthony Dhas 24*, Nidish Rajagopal 22; G Periyaswamy 2-17, Lokesh Raj 1-27) by 4 wickets.
Player of the Match: Rahil Shah (RTW)
