Gillies keen to open account

While Karaikudi lost their match against VB Thiruvallur Veerans, the Chepauk Super Gillies faltered in the league’s opening match against Albert Tuti Patriots. 

The Gillies had a subdued opener at the MA Chidambaram Stadium against the Patriots. The Gillies’ bowling was a positive area in their first game. R Sathish led the bowling attack beautifully, picking up two wickets with an economy of four. Antony Dhas was the other bowler who impressed in the opening night, but the Chepauk batting performance couldn’t match their bowling.

Apart from Thalaivan Sargunam, who scored 29, the other batsmen couldn’t get going and struggled against the left-arm spin of Aushik Srinivas and medium pacer Akash Sumra. Chepauk lost four wickets in the space of one run, with three batsmen getting out for nought. They would look to put up a better batting performance against Karaikudi and hope to get off the mark. 

On the contrary, the Karaikudi team looked set after a good start when they dismissed the Veerans opener Hari Nishanth with no score on the board and picking up two quick wickets thereafter. But Baba Aparajith’s magnificent century took the game away from them. Karaikudi could not get going in the middle overs against spin and if not for the acceleration at the end by R Rajkumar, they would not have had many runs to defend. 

R Srinivasan, who scored a half-century and Vijay Kumar were positives in the batting department, apart from Rajkumar. Suresh Babu bowled an impressive spell, though wicketless.