Winning cricket and influential partnerships – tango takes two – are tied together.
And a second undefeated mammoth players association with 151 of 82 balls helped hosts Lyca Kovai Kings easily let iDream Tiruppur Tamizhans score 158 in their TNPL clash this coming Saturday.
Local lad and opener Suresh Kumar (83 not out, 44b, 9×4, 3×6) and nampaw Sai Sudharsan (68 not out, 41b, 9×4, 1×6) impressed.
Goalkeeper Suresh, playing with freedom and focus, slams the ball through gaps on either side, steps down to attack the spinner for long periods of time and covers and is busy throughout.
And Sai fought with the grace and delicacy of a nature.
Balancing on a twisty road, he shoots the ball through the gaps on either side, his feet and willow moving in harmony. Quality is never lacking when Saigon becomes a bat.
Earlier, S. Anirudha’s blitzkrieg (39, 21b, 1×4, 5×6) motivated Tamizhans’ – first leg.
Dinesh Karthik graciously entertained the crowd with some powerful normal shots before the brave Ajith swooped in to hit the star hitter who conceded a long stretch of the net.
With his high-stakes action and easy, languid release, Ajith is one of the men of the future.
Tamizhans kept losing ground and couldn’t make enough runs across the board despite some late southpaw Maan Bafna flourishes.
In the second match of the day, Chepauk Super Gillies dominated the Dindigul Dragons with 5 goals.
The dragons, inserted, struggled to find rhythm in its 138th batting, dropping catches but still fighting hard on the court to make it to the final.
Captains Kaushik Gandhi (44, 38b, 3×4, 2×6) and N. Jagadeesan (31, 30b, 3×4) gave the Super Gillies a solid start and Sonu Yadav delivered superb shots in 18 tackles. his 26.
The threat of R. Ashwin’s out-of-sight shot was effectively neutralized by Super Gillies smashers.
Prior to that, seafarers Sandeep Warrier and Sonu were bowling with exemplary control and the spinner maintained much of the pressure on the Super Gillies.
As for the Dragons, R. Vivek (61 didn’t go out, 38b, 4×4, 4×6), brought down to zero by Sathish on the long run off Siddharth, tore apart the left hand crank R. Sai Kishore and the swimmer Harish Kumar late in the game gave a burst of sixes to fuel the grueling rounds, but that wasn’t enough.
