Alwarpet springs a surprise on India Pistons

Set a target of 186, Pistons was skittled out for 118 in 41.3 overs. The new-ball bowlers of Alwarpet, Prasanth Parameswaran and Abhishek Tanwar bowled with control and precision, and extracted bounce from the wicket. 

The duo played on the patience of the India Pistons’ openers by cramping them for room. Run-making became a laborious exercise as the run rate steadily mounted. 

But, the day truly belonged to Alwarpet’s lanky left-arm spinner M Siddharth who scalped five wickets for only 16 runs. Earlier, Abhishek top-scored for Alwarpet with a crucial 60 that went a long way in helping his team reach a respectable score. 

Group A: Grand Slam-India Cements 225/9 in 50 overs (N Jagadeesan 85, U Sasidev 26, S Aswinkumar 3/28, R Rajkumar 2/36, RD Ashwinkumar 2/46) bt AG’s Office 214/9 in 50 overs (P Francis Rokins 67, R Rajkumar 49, V Yo Mahesh 2/31, R Sai Kishore 2/30). Points: GS 4; AG 0. 

Group B: Nelson 264/8 in 50 overs (S Karthik 30, M Sridhar Raj 28, KH Gopinath 96, Daryl S Ferrario 36, R Srinivasan 39, R Alexandar 3/35, Adithya Arun 2/59, S 

Gowtham 2/56) bt CromBestKalpathi Investments 113 in 31.2 overs (R Arun Balaji 26, Varun M Totadri 33, S Senthilnathan 4/15, S Samuel 3/28, MS Sailesh 2/32). Nelson 4; CB 0. 

Group C: Alwarpet-Sanmar 185 in 48.4 overs (K Vishal Vaidhya 38, Abhishek Tanwar 60, T Ajithkumar 3/33, M Prabhu 2/38, Maan K Bafna 2/29) bt India Pistons 118 in 41.3 overs (Akshay V Srinivasan 31, Maan K Bafna 25, M Siddharth 5/16). Alwarpet 4; Pistons 0. 

Group D: TI Cycles 159 in 44.1 overs (Adhithya Giridhar 48, Sumant Jain 27, Sunny Gupta 3/28, Ashwath Mukunthan 2/37) lost to Globe Trotters-MRF 160/5 in 37.3 overs (Y Venugopal Rao 35, C Hari Nishaanth 62, R Sanjay Yadav 3/21). GT 4; TI 0.