Match 21: 3rd August 2021
Teams: Nellai Royal Kings vs Dindigul Dragons
Place: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Time: 7:30 PM IST
Toss: Nellai Royal Kings won the toss and elected to bowl first
Lineups:
Nellai Royal Kings: Baba Aparajith (c), Laxmesha Suryaprakash, Pradosh Ranjan Paul, Baba Indrajith (wk), Sanjay Yadav, Arjun Murthy, Jitendra Kumar, Sri Neranjan, NS Harish, Trilok Nag, V Athisayaraj Davidson
Dindigul Dragons: Hari Nishanth (c), Mani Bharathi (wk), R Vivek, Rajhamany Srinivasan, RS Mokit Hariharan, S Swaminathan, Lakshminarayanan Vignesh, MS Sanjay, Gurjapneet Singh, M Silambarasan, Rangaraj Suthesh
CAPTAIN LEADING FROM THE FRONT
It is often the leader who leads by example and falters at times and his soldiers will always be there backing him/her up. But the usual part happened yesterday for the Nellai Royal Kings where, not only the captain, but the whole unit worked as a team of assembled robots doing their work to perfection and defeating the strong Dindigul side and moving a few places up in the points table. Let’s head to the post match review of Nellai Royal Kings vs Dindigul Dragons.
Nellai Royal Kings won the toss and elected to field first and had two changes in Trilok Nag and debutant Jithendra Kumar in for Mohan Abhinav and Aswath Mukunthan. The Dindigul setup remained unchanged. Openers Hari Nishanth and MS Sanjay started for the Dindigul side while A Davidson started the proceedings for Nellai in the bowling. Spinner NS Harish was introduced in the second over and removed the key wicket of Hari Nishanth caught stunningly by debutant Jithendra Kumar. Nellai were in a roll when A Davidson returned for his second over and removed the other opener MS Sanjay caught stunningly by NS Harish. R Srinivasan and Mani Bharathy were the new batters in the middle and it was upto the duo to notch up a partnership and save the team. Both started breaking the shackles, dispatching to the boundaries at intervals and also keeping the scoreboard ticking by rotating the strike. Trilok Nag was treated viciously by R Srinivasan wherein he dispatched two to the fence off his first over. On the other side, Mani Bharathy took on Sanjay Yadav and hoisted and slashed him for boundaries.
There were some missed fielding chances which were tough to hold onto by the Nellai side. These missed chances were put to good use by the Dindigul duo of Srinivasan and Mani Bharathy who registered their 50 run partnership in 45 balls. R Srinivasan reached his half century off a top edged four off Sanjay Yadav to the third man. Trilok Nag got an opportunity to dismiss Mani Bharathy in his second over only to be dropped by Pradosh Ranjan Paul which was a sitter. The duo were rallying well when Sanjay Yadav came and dismissed Mani Bharathy with an effective stumping by Indrajith and Trilok Nag came for his third over and castled the dangerous R Srinivasan off a slower ball making his off stump take a walk around the ground.
New batters Vivek and Mokit Hariharan were in the middle and Vivek took on A Davidson in his second spell, slashing for two boundaries to the fence in the 18th over. But Athisyaraj Davidson took a chance and dismissed Mokit, caught stunningly by Trilok Nag. Swaminathan joined Vivek in the middle and the duo put up some runs and finally DD scored 147/5 in 20 overs.
Next came the Nellai openers B Aparajith and Suryaprakash and Silambarasan opened the bowling for Dindigul. The openers started from the word GO and started the over with two boundaries to the fence by Aparajith. The captain had his plans very clear, attack them and score maximum in the powerplay and take the team to a safer position for the win. Suryaprakash did justice to his role and took on R Sutesh in the 4th over of the innings when he scored three sizzling fours to the fence and the opponent captain Hari Nishaanth had no clue as to how to control the flow of runs from the blades of the Nellai openers. But Suryaprakash soon perished when Swaminathan came in the last over of the powerplay and dismissed him in his very first ball caught by L Vignesh.
Pradosh Ranjan Paul joined Aparajith in the middle and the duo kept ticking the scoreboard with rotating the strike and Aparajith striking at intervals, slashing to the fence and hoisting to the stands whenever he got chances.There was a chance in the 10th over when Hari Nishaanth dropped a chance of dismissing Aparajith bowled by Gurjapneet Singh. The duo soon registered their 50 run partnership with equal contributions from both. L Vignesh was introduced in the 14th over and his first ball was slashed to the boundary. But Vignesh striked in his next ball dismissing the dangerous Aparajith six short of his half century caught and bowled. Sanjay Yadav joined Pradosh Paul in the middle and the duo started slow before Sanjay Yadav hoisted one to the stands of R Sutesh second spell.
L Vignesh came back and pinned a yorker to dismiss Pradosh Ranjan Paul rattling his stumps. B Indrajith joined Sanjay Yadav in the middle. Sanjya Yadav smoked some monstrous sixes in the last two balls of L Vignesh’s second over. While Indrajith played the anchor role, Sanjay Yadav played the attacking role hoisting for sixes and slashing fours before he was dismissed by R Sutesh caught comfortably by L Vignesh. Arjun Murthy joined Indrajith in the middle and soon was dismissed by R Sutesh. Indrajith soon finished up things with one to the boundary and Nellai Royal Kings notched up their second win in their 5 games.
Brief Scores: Dindigul Dragons 147/5 in 20 overs (R Srinivasan 60, Mani Bharathy 30, R Vivek 32*; A Davidson 2-23, NS Harish 1-25, Sanjay Yadav 1-28) lost to Nellai Royal Kings 148/5 in 18.5 overs (B Aparajith 44, Sanjay Yadav 31, Pradosh Ranjan Paul 27; R Sutesh 2-34, L Vignesh 2-20, S Swaminathan 1-9) by 5 wickets.
Player of the Match: Baba Aparajith (NRK)
