Match 9: 25th July 2021
Teams: Lyca Kovai Kings vs Dindigul Dragons
Place: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Time: 7:30 PM IST
Toss: Dindigul Dragons won the toss and elected to bowl first
Lineups:
Lyca Kovai Kings: Ganga Sridhar Raju, Sai Sudharsan, Ashwin Venkataraman, U Mukilesh, Shahrukh Khan (c), J Suresh Kumar (wk), Abhishek Tanwar, N Selva Kumaran, Krishnamoorthy Vignesh, S Ajith Ram, Elangovan Srinivasan
Dindigul Dragons: S Arun, Hari Nishanth (c), Mani Bharathi (wk), RS Mokit Hariharan, R Vivek, Lakshminarayanan Vignesh, Suresh Lokeshwar, Gurjapneet Singh, Rangaraj Suthesh, S Swaminathan, M Silambarasan
WILLOW SAYS HELLOOOO!!!!!!
There is a famous dialogue from legendary Tamil comedian Vadivelu in a movie where he says “Yaaru Perusunu adichu kaatu”, meaning who is superior by bashing/trashing. The same got cascaded in the high scoring match, sorry taming by the Dindigul Dragons against Lyca Kovai Kings at the Chepauk.
Lyca made one change to their lineup with keeper R Kavin giving his spot to the other keeper J Suresh Kumar and in the Dindigul setup, captain R Srinivasan gave his way for L Vignesh and MS Sanjay gave way for S Lokeshwar. Hari Nishanth donned the captain role for the first time. Dindigul won the toss and opted to bowl.
GS Raju and Suresh Kumar opened the batting for Lyca while R Sutesh opened the bowling for Dindigul. Both the batters started very cautiously and were rotating the strike and keeping the scoreboard ticking. There was a wicket scare through a run out where three opportunities came in a single ball only to be missed by Dindigul Dragons. GS Raju broke the shackles and smashed a four of the last ball of the 3rd over. Suresh Kumar too joined the party and hoisted a six over the straight sight screen off K Vignesh bowling in the last ball of the 4th over. The tall lanky left arm pacer Gurjapneet Singh was taken by GS Raju and he smashed three fours of his first over and dented his confidence.
The duo went after every other bowler in the Dindigul setup and captain Hari Nishanth was clueless of what he had to do. The ambidextrous spinner Mokit Hariharan was introduced to control the flow of runs from the blades of the openers from Lyca but that proved too costly with both of them taming with utmost power and his first over yielded 18 runs. Captain Hari Nishanth too bowled an over and at one stage, the Dindigul Dragons used 8 of their bowlers for only the batters and keeper waiting to roll their arms.
Suresh Kumar reached his fifty off 36 balls and the highest opening partnership for Lyca in the TNPL 2021 was registered by both Suresh Kumar and GS Raju with about 108 runs contributed by both. The partnership was finally broken when left arm pacer R Sutesh castled Suresh Kumar with a zippy delivery which rattled the stumps of the opener. Sai Sudarshan, the young star of Lyca joined the party with GS Raju and they both had a great time in the middle bashing everyone all around the park. GS Raju hit with aplomb and reached his fity off 38 balls with a glorious six from Hari Nishanth bowling. Lyca ended the first innings on 201/1, the highest of TNPL 2021.
Next came the openers from Dindigul, Hari Nishanth and S Arun and Abhishek Tanwar opened the bowling for Lyca. Arun was dominating with the shots while Hari Nishanth was dominating with dot balls. He struggled a lot failing to convert his starts unlike last year. It didn’t take much time for the Lyca bowlers unlike the Dindigul side when spinner E Srinivasan dismissed opener S Arun with a full toss easily offered by the batter to Sai Sudarshan. Hari Nishanth was now joined by keeper Mani Bharathy and the real play started now.
Mani Bharathy hoisted a six off his very first ball and behaved like he just came out of the nets. He didn’t stop with that and thrashed the ball into the fence twice of the same over of E Srinivasan. This attitude of Mani Bharathy boosted Hari Nishanth and he followed the same by hoisting a six over the stands and sending the ball to the fence in the next over bowled by S Ajith Ram. E Srinivasan was tamed again by Mani Bharathy in his next over, bashing all around the park catapulting the team score by 21 runs in the 7th over. The duo raised their 50 run partnership in less than 20 balls albeit Mani Bharathy tattering the bowlers. If Mani Bharathy targeted E Srinivasan, Hari Nishanth targeted N Selvakumaran, another spinner and hit 16 runs in his over in total accounting to 19 runs by both Mani and Hari. Mani Bharathy soon reached his fifty off 20 balls, the fourth highest in the tournament history and he further added salt to the wounds of the Lyca bowlers. Hari Nishanth too hit his fifty in the next over of 29 balls and led the team with utmost responsibility. Like how Hari Nishanth was clueless and made himself available and rolled his arms, Lyca captain Shahrukh also was in the same situation and he started bowling his medium pace which was also not spared by the duo and they bashed him left, right and centre. When the situation was going out of hand, things started turning in the wrong direction for Dindigul Dragons. They lost 4 wickets in the space of 5 balls with Mani Bharathy and Vivek being dismissed by GS Raju off his spin, caught comfortably by Shahrukh and Mukilesh respectively. Hari Nishanth was the next to depart offering the team hat-trick for Lyca Kovai Kings caught by Suresh Kumar of N Selvakumaran bowling. Mokit Hariharan followed suite by getting run out in a comical manner and the Dindigul side were having wickets and balls to chase the target but were having nerves to take the team past the finish line. S Lokeshwar and Swaminathan finally took Dindigul home with a good partnership and pocketed two points to their team. Dindigul achieved the highest successful chase in TNPL history!!!
Brief Scores: Lyca Kovai Kings 201/1 in 20 overs (GS Raju 90*, J Suresh Kumar 58, Sai Sudarshan 40*; R Sutesh 1-26) lost to Dindigul Dragons 202/5 in 18 overs (K Mani Bharathy 81, Hari Nishanth 70, S Arun 20, Swaminathan 17*; GS Raju 2-8, N Selvakumaran 1-29, E Srinivasan 1-35) by 5 wickets.
Player of the Match: K Mani Bharathy (DD)
