Explosive and exciting captain for Chepauk Super Gillies

So it came as no surprise when Chepauk Super Gillies with Hemang Badani as head coach snapped him as their first choice. “We have played a lot of cricket together. And he was the T20 captain of TN last year. He is an exciting player,” said Badani as he looked at his line-up of 19 picked last Saturday in the player draft. 

In fact, Badani has been part of the First Division league for a long time and he keeps a keen eye on the young talents emerging from the TNCA backyard. “We picked Badani (as coach) because till last year he has been playing in the TNCA league,” said Chepauk Super Gillies owner Sivanthi Adityan. “Even though we did not have the support staff, it did not affect us when we went for the draft.” The Chepauk team placed its accent on all-rounders, picking up Sathish, Yo Mahesh, Anthony Dhas, KH Gopinath and Sasidev in their first seven attempts. “The league (T20) demands a lot of all-rounders. Dhas and Mahesh are medium-pacers and decent batsmen and nowadays a batting wicket-keeper is a good all-round option so Gopinath belongs there,” explained Badani. Thalaivan Sargunam and Vasanth Saravanan lend teeth to the top order batting.

Tamil Kumaran and Rajeel Rahman are the fast bowlers. “We have a couple of young talents in Rahul B who has scored a lot of runs and Nirmal Kumar, a leg-spinner,” added Badani. Captain Sathish said the team is a mixture of youth and experience. “Hemang bhai and our analyst Lakshmi Narayanan have done a good job in keeping track of the players’ stats and I have played with most of them,” he added. 

Team: R Sathish, Yo Mahesh, Thalaivan Sargunam, Anthony Dhas, Gopinath, Sai Kishore, Sasidev, Joel Joseph, Tamil Kumaran, Alaxander R, Vasanth Saravanan S, Rahul B, Ashwath Mukunthan, Karthik S, Rajeel Abdul Rahman, Nirmal Kumar, Vasudevan, Aditya Barooah, Shibi Jawahar