Sai Kishore Spins CSG To Win

Chennai

Chepauk was greatly boosted by the return of R Sai Kishore and Sandeep Warrier. The lanky left-arm spinner, Sai Kishore, impressed on his first TNPL outing this season taking four wickets for 30 runs.

He accounted for the key scalps of C Hari Nishaanth, RS Mokit Hariharan, R Vivek and S Swaminathan to turn the tide in Chepauk’s favour. Sandeep, who was making his TNPL debut, was economical in his spell finishing with 4-0-21-1.

In pursuit of 160, Dindigul got off to a confident start with captain Hari Nishaanth making a useful contribution of 39 (31b, 1x4, 3x6).

But once he was dismissed in the 12th over, Dindigul lost wickets at regular intervals and struggled to keep pace with the asking rate. Towards the end, Vivek biffed a couple of maximums but Sai Kishore trapped him in front for 16 (9b, 2x6) to avert danger. Earlier, Chepauk’s opening pair of captain Kaushik Gandhi 45 (31b, 5x4, 2x6) and wicketkeeper Narayan Jagadeesan 40 (27b, 3x6) scored at a fast clip, raising 73 runs in 7.4 balls before L Vignesh got rid of the skipper.

Sonu Yadav looked ill at ease during his stay and struggled to force the issue getting out for 6 (14b). In walked U Sasidev in the 12th over and, along with Jagadeesan, he went about rebuilding the innings. Jagadeesan perished while trying to up the ante when he was caught behind by Mani Bharathi off left-arm spinner M Silambarasan. Chepauk added a crucial 46 runs off the last 41 balls to set Dindigul a challenging score of 160.

In the evening’s first match, Ruby Trichy Warriors earned a six-wicket win over Salem Spartans.

Brief scores: Match 2:Chepauk Super Gillies 159/7 in 20 overs (Kaushik Gandhi 45, N Jagadeesan 40) beat Dindigul Dragons 135/8 in 20 overs (R Sai Kishore 4/30);Match 1: Salem Spartans 116/8 in 20 overs lost to Ruby Trichy Warriors 120/4 in 18.3 overs (Adithya Ganesh 28*, Antony Dhas 24)