Chepauk Super Gillies maintained their Tamil Nadu Premier League supremacy via a victory in the closely contested finale this Sunday against Ruby Trichy Warriors. The Super Gillies came out triumphant by just 8 runs, with their left-arm spinner Sai Kishore managing to defend 13 runs off the final over.
The 24-year-old Kishore showed maturity beyond his years under pressure, as he gave away only five runs from his six balls despite delivering four of those to Warriors’ well-set batter Saravan Kumar (45). That capped off a fantastic four-over spell of 1/30 from Kishore.
Apart from the left-armer, Sonu Yadav (2/32), B Arun (1/23) also bowled their overs tightly besides chipping in with important breakthroughs on the biggest night of the competition, helping their team retain the tag of champions by restricting Warriors to 175/7 in their quest to chase down Gillies’ 183/6.
Saravan was the top scorer for the Warriors with a 45 off 25 balls, but apart from him, no other Warriors batsman played a stand-out knock that the team needed. Opening batsman Amit Sathvik was the second-highest run-getter for them with 36 from 16 balls.
All-rounder Saravan, however, was the most expensive bowler in the first half for his team and gave away 56 runs off his four overs without taking a wicket. Warriors skipper Rahil Shah (2/31) and M Poiyamozhi (2/37) were amongst the wickets, while M Mathivannan (0/24) bowled an economical spell. But Saravan’s expensive outing with the ball came back to haunt him and his team.
The game was set up for Super Gillies with the bat by an excellent knock of 90 off 58 balls from wicketkeeper-batsman N Jagadeesan. The innings featured seven fours and two sixes, and almost singlehandedly took the team past 180, with the second-best individual score of the innings being 26 from fellow opener Kaushik Gandhi.
Brief scores
Chepauk Super Gillies 183/6 in 20 overs (N Jagadeesan 90, Kaushik Gandhi 26; Rahil Shah 2/31, M Poiyamozhi 2/37) beat Ruby Trichy Warriors 175/7 in 20 overs (Saravan Kumar 45, Amit Sathvik 36; Sonu Yadav 2/32, Sai Kishore 1/30) by 8 runs
