Dragons breathe fire over Warriors

An inspiring all-round performance from Dragons ensured they dominated for the most part of the game. N Jagadeesan top-scored with 44 while V Guru Kedarnath, M Ashwin and Sunny Kumar Singh managed two wickets apiece. Dragons scored 159 in their allotted 20 overs and restricted the Warriors to 111/9 in 20 overs. 

Put into bat first, Dindigul Dragons started on a cautious note with both the openers N Jagadeesan and Ganga Sridhar Raju negotiating the first two overs with minimum fuss. The openers rotated the strike well and found the boundary once every over in the power-play as runs weren't at a premium. The batsmen cut loose in the last over of fielding restrictions bowled by J Kaushik with Jagadeesan first hitting a thunderous one over the bowler's head for four. Raju joined the party soon and heaved the last ball of the sixth over beyond the square-leg fence as the Dragons reached 38 in six overs. 

Raju continued his good work as he found the boundaries at will and with Jagdeesan offering good support at the other end, the Dragons stepped up their scoring rate. The duo brought up the highest first wicket partnership in the league when they put on 63 runs in 9.1 overs before M Shahrukh Khan took a good catch to dismiss Raju for 32. 

Runs continued to flow from Jagadeesan's bat as the batsman milked 13 runs of left-arm spinner L Ganesh's first over. Later, it turned out to be the only over the spinner bowled. Jagadeesan's innings came to a close when his attempted reverse sweep off A C Prathiban could only find R Jesuraj at short-third man with the score reading 83 in 11.4 overs. In the next over, J Kousik took a superb reflex catch off his own bowling to send A Venkataraman back. 

Just when it looked like the Dragons were getting into a hole losing three wickets for 21 runs, Subramania Siva and Dragons skipper R Ashwin steadied the ship with a 33-run partnership that came in less than 4 overs. Siva was not afraid to use his feet to come down the track to send the ball into crowd and flexed his muscles to hit a maximum in the mid-wicket area too. Siva's brief cameo of 23 in 15 balls ended when he skied the ball to the deep square leg fielder off Jesuraj. 

The Dragons skipper, who walked out to a thunderous applause earlier, couldn't do much damage with the bat as he was left short of the crease in trying to beat a stupendous throw from the fine-leg fielder Jesuraj. R Vivek played a neat cameo in the end scoring 18 in 10 balls as Dragons finished at 159/6 in 20 overs, with M Ashwin finishing off the innings with a six over mid-wicket. 

Chasing eight-runs an over from the start, Kanchi Warriors got to a worst start losing both the openers inside the power-play. Seasoned campaigner R Ashwin and his namesake M Ashwin spun a web around the Warriors batsmen. The batsmen never got into the groove and it was upon Shahrukh Khan and B Indrajith to rescue the Warriors. It soon became 35/3 when both the Ashwin's combined to send off Ganesh, with the experienced inducing the batsman to hit on the up. And when Khan skied one to M Ashwin off Guru Kedarnath, the writing on the wall was clear for Warriors at 36/4. 

The boundaries dried up and Indrajith, in an attempt to accelerate, missed connecting M Ashwin for the wicket-keeper Jagadeesan to do the rest behind the stumps. J Kousik, too, fell in a similar fashion to the same bowler and after 13 overs, the Warriors were at a horrid 53/6. 

Adithya Ganesh and Prathiban only delayed the inevitable as the required run-rate crossed the 20-run mark. With the Warriors just scoring four boundaries and three sixes in their innings, the dominance of Dragons was clearly visible. Warriors, in the end, managed 111/9 in 20 overs.