TNPL 2017: Chepauk Super Gillies lift their maiden title thrashing TUTI Patriots by 6 wickets
Chepauk Super Gillies lift their maiden title thrashing TUTI Patriots by 6 wickets
Sathiamoorty Saravanan’s blitz assisted Chepauk Super Gillies (CSG) to lift their maiden Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) trophy. Washington Sundar’s final three deliveries could do nothing much but pave the way for CSG’s 6-wicket victory. Opener Hari Gopinath provided blistering start to CSG with a half-century as the team chased 144. After his dismissal, CSG lost their momentum. However, Rajagopal Satish and Saravanan’s staged a comeback, sweeping the game away from Albert TUTI Patriots (TP) by 6 wickets with an over to spare. This was the second meet of the teams in the final of TNPL 2017. Last time, Abhinav Mukund’s unbeaten 82 swept the game off CSG. This time CSG’s all-round show handed them their first title.
Earlier, it was the CSG bowlers who set up the game for them. They restricted TP at a par score of 143 for 8. Sundar and Kaushik Gandhi did provide the start but the rest of the team failed to carry forward the momentum. The opening pair put up 26 runs by the end of third over, until Satish handed the first breakthrough to CSG. Within the next four overs, Gandhi was also dismissed by R Alexander for 24. It was then over to Mukund, with a hope to replicate last year’s heroics. His steady partnership of 43 runs with Dinesh Karthik came to a halt when Arun Kumar came into attack. In span of two overs, both the settled players, Mukund (41) andKarthik (17), were removed. SP Nathan tried to repair the damage. However, this time Sai Srinivasan joined hands with Kumar and got consecutive wickets of Nathan and Subramanian Anand. CSG’s fielding was commendable, too.
Wicketkeeper-batsman S Karthik showed some skills with gloves stumping Akash Sumra and Aushik Srinivas in the final over.
Brief scores:
TUTI Patriots 143 for 8 in 20 overs (Abhinav Mukund 41, Kaushik Gandhi 24; Sai Kishore 2 for 25) lost to Chepauk Super Gillies 145 for 4 in 19 overs (Gopinath 50, Sathiamoorthy Saravanan 23*; Athisayaraj Davidson 2 for 30) by 6 wickets with 6 balls to spare