Vanakkam, Good Evening and Welcome to the live blog of Match 1 of Tamil Nadu Premier League between Chepauk Super Gillies (CSG) and TUTI Patriots (TP) MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Dinesh Karthik is heading TP while Rajagopal Staish is leading CSG. It’s the start of a new era in Tamil Nadu Cricket. The state has its own T20 league now with the newly established Tamil Nadu Premier League. The star-studded list included Prabhu, Vikram Prabhu, Hansika Motwani, Lakshmi Rai, Aishwarya Rajesh, Khushboo, Samantha, Nasser, Janani Iyer and Jeyam Ravi. Samantha handed the Chepauk jersey to the guests.
Pattaiya Kalappu, the anthem, was also launched and it was introduced in some style with a dance performance on show. The Chepauk players then walked the ramp with the jerseys on, in the company of models. Rechristened the ‘Albert TUTI Patriots’, this team will be led by Dinesh Karthik and features Abhinav Mukund and Lakshmipathy Balaji. Thoothukudi Sports & Entertainment Pvt Ltd owns this team.
T20 cricket returns to the Chepauk after a long while, with eight teams battling for the ultimate prize. It all starts off with the Chennai Super Gillies taking on Tuti Patriots in the season opener. The TNPL is along the same lines as the Karnataka Premier League (KPL) and Maharashtra Premier League (MPL), launched in 2009 and 2015 respectively, and is expected to tap into the cricketing potential throughout the south Indian state.
Squads:
TUTI Patriots: Dinesh Karthik(wk/c), Umashankar Sushil, Siddarth Ahuja, Akash Surma, Subramanian Anand, Aswin Crist, V Athisayaraj Davidson, Aushik Srinivas, Lakshmipathy Balaji, M Ganesh Moorthi, Kaushik Gandhi, V Lakshman, Maaruthi Raghav, Abhinav Mukund, SP Nathan, G Nicul Anand, R Sathyanarayan, R Vishaal, Washington Sundar
Chepauk Super Gillies: Rajagopal Sathish(c), Antony Dhas, Gopinath(wk), Joel Joseph, Yo Mahesh, Dakshinamoorthy Kumaran, Sathiamoorty Saravanan, Thalaivan Sargunam, R Alexander, Aditya Barooah, Jothimani Gowjith Subhash, S Karthik, Ashwath Mukumthan, Baskaran Rahul, Rajeel Abdul Rahman, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Uthirasamy Sasidev, V Shibi Jawahar, SI Vasudevan, PS Nirmal Kumar