Chepauk Super Gillies beat Ruby Trichy Warriors by six wickets and seal a semi-final berth

For the second day in a row, a rain delay led to a truncated match in the Tamil Nadu Premier League 2017. In an important game for Ruby Trichy Warriors, Chepauk Super Gillies won the toss and elected to field but just as the two sides were about to take the field a heavy downpour halted play.

After the 95-minute break, the match was reduced to 17 overs a side, with five overs of powerplay. The match started at 8.50 pm. 

Trichy openers Bharath Shankar and Baba Indrajith made the most of the powerplay as the duo scored 43 runs of their five overs. R Alexander, however, got Chepauk a breakthrough off his second ball, removing the hard-hitting Shankar for 25. Sai Kishore took an easy catch at the long-on. Akkil Srinaath, who was promoted up the order, hit some lusty blows and they had a quick partnership of 40 runs in 26 balls. 

Sai Kishore came into action again as he took an easy catch of the bowling of Yo Mahesh after Srinaath didn’t get enough distance on the ball and was caught at mid-wicket. Indrajith (34), who was patiently involved in both partnerships, miscued a slow short ball from D Kumaran and was caught by U Sasidev, who took a good catch while running backwards. The team went through a slow phase as they tried to rebuild their innings. Sai Kishore pouched his third catch of the match to get rid of Kousik. Trichy set Chepauk a target of 133.

Meanwhile, Chepauk got off to a good start with openers Thalaivan Sargunam and KH Gopinath scoring 41 runs in the batting powerplay. Sargunam did the bulk of the scoring as he found the gaps to perfection and hit some maximums as well. The pair's opening stand was worth 63 runs and included three boundaries and three sixes. 

J Kaushik finally broke the partnership, removing Sargunam as Kousik called early and took a good catch at point. Kousik followed that up with a beauty of delivery that sent Gopinath’s middle stump hurtling. In the same over, a direct hit by Nilesh Subramanian saw Vasanth Saravanan making the long walk back to the hut. 

Some big hits from Anthony Dhas saw the pendulum swing back in Chepauk’s favour. Dhas and U Sasidev had a 59-run partnership to seal the win for their side. Dhas sealed the match in style with a massive six. 

Brief scores: Ruby Trichy Warriors 132/7 in 17 overs (Baba Indrajith 34, 30b, 6x4, Bharath Shankar 25, 20b, 5x4; Yo Mahesh 3/21, D Kumaran 2/27) lost to Chepauk Super Gillies 136/4 in 15.4 overs (Thalaivan Sargunam 42, 33b, 2x4, 3X6, Anthony Dhas 39, 22b, 1x4, 4x6; J Kaushik 1/23, J Kousik 1/24) by 6 wickets