Warriors all at bay against Gillies

The match was reduced to 13 overs a side, due to rain that delayed the start by over 100 minutes. The Warriors scored 97 in 13 overs and Chepauk Super Gillies overhauled the target in 11.5 overs, losing three wickets.

It was another all-round performance that saw the Super Gillies cross the line with minimum fuss. While D Tamil Kumaran and R Sai Kishore were the stars with the ball returning with figures of 4/24 and 2/10 respectively, veteran batsman Vasanth Saravanan (50 in 34 balls) and Gowjith Subash (23 in 17 balls) shone with the bat.

Batting first after winning the toss, Kanchi Warriors were off to a flyer with K Bharath Shankar on the money from the word go. He whipped Rajagopal Sathish off his hips for six off the first ball of the match and found the cover boundary in the second ball. The first over yielded 11 runs and the Warriors’ intent was clear.

Sathish introduced spin in the second over through R Alexander and the left-arm spinner couldn’t manage any inroads and gave away nine runs.

The Chepauk skipper then threw the ball to Sai Kishore and the master-stroke change worked like a charm. The left-arm spinner induced Shankar to play on the wrong line and the ball hit Shankar’s pad and disturbed the timber.

Kishore then invited Warriors skipper B Indrajith to come down the track, beat him with a faster one and wicket-keeper K H Gopinath did the rest behind the stumps.

A maiden-wickets over was the best way Chepauk could plug the Warriors back and Kishore did it in style. The four overs power-play fetched the Warriors 31 runs.

Next, it was the turn of Tamil Kumaran to rattle the Warriors with a twin-strike in the sixth over. R Nilesh Subramaniam, in an attempt to accelerate, could only find S Vasanth Saravanan in the long-on boundary while S Siddharth couldn’t get the ball beyond Yo Mahesh Kumar at mid-on two balls later. The Warriors were precariously placed at 43/4 in six overs at that stage.

Adithya Ganesh got the 50 for Warriors with a six, but had to depart the next ball when Kumaran took a good catch at the boundary off Alexander.

M Shahrukh Khan and J Kousik stitched a quick-fire 24 runs partnership in 20 balls but the Super Gillies hit back with a twin-strike in the 11th over. Kousik was the first to depart holing out to Sathish off Antony Dhas and Thalaivan Sargunam’s acrobatic fielding and good reflexes at short mid-wicket found L Ganesh short of the crease to leave Warriors at 79/7.

Shahrukh was undisturbed at the other end as he pulled Kumaran for a six over mid-wicket but Kumaran had the last laugh when he uprooted Shahrukh’s middle stump the next ball as Warriors sunk to 93/9.

Shahrukh had done his bit by scoring 26 in 15 balls with three sixes. Kumaran was the pick of the bowlers with four wickets for 24 runs in his three overs. Kanchi Warriors managed three runs the last over and Dhas caught R Jesuraj off his own bowling as the Warriors folded for 97 in 13 overs.

Chasing 98, the Super Gillies got to a bad start when Gopinath was dismissed in the first over for two runs. It only got worse for the Gillies when star batsman Thalaivan skied one to Shankar in the last ball of the power-play to for five to leave the Gillies tottering at 16/2.

Gowjith Subash and Vasanth came to rescue with some brilliant batting and stitched a 59-run partnership in a little more than five overs to get the Gillies back on track.

They stepped up on the gas at the right time and milked Kousik for 18 runs in his first over, the sixth of the innings, to set the tone. Once, they got the knack of scoring on the wicket, Saravanan and Subash made no mistake in middling the ball and finding the boundaries at will.

Subash’s innings came to a close when he tried to heave Jesuraj out of the park but lost his middle stump in the process. However, by then at the score of 75, Chepauk were on course to a fine win.

Chepauk Super Gillies needed just over six runs an over in the last five and scoring them was a mere formality. Saravanan, in the meanwhile, got to a fine half-century off 34 balls while the skipper Sathish (17 off 8 balls) put no foot wrong to guide the Super Gillies to their second win in three matches.