B. Anirudh Sita Ram guided Siechem Madurai Panthers to a winning start with an unbeaten 58 (41b, 7x4, 1x6) to help his side beat Chepauk Super Gillies by four wickets in the Tamil Nadu Premier League match at the ICL Ground in Tirunelveli on Saturday.
Electing to field, Panthers bowlers produced a superb effort to restrict Super Gillies to just 135 for eight.
Chasing a modest target, Anirudh started positively by hitting pacer Sandeep Warrier for four boundaries spread over two overs with clean drives and pulls.
Along with opener K.B. Arun Karthick, the left-handed batter got the team off strongly with a 50-run stand for the second wicket off just 29 balls.
Super Gillies fought back when left-arm spinner R. Alexander (3/20) struck twice in two overs to remove Arun Karthick and J. Kousik as the Panthers slipped to 82/4 in the 11th over from 74/1.
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Anirudh though played sensibly by nudging it around and with some help from K. Rajkumar and Sunny Sandhu, he ensured the 2018 champions got home easily in the end.
Earlier, the Super Gillies top-order batters were guilty of throwing their wickets with some poor shot selection.
Pacer Sunny had skipper Kaushik Gandhi in the first over, going for a big heave only to hit it straight to the mid-on fielder while Kiran Akash struck twice in two overs to remove N. Jagadeesan and S. Sujay caught behind.
India spinner Varun Chakaravarthy then struck twice in his first over when he had R. Sonu Yadav trapped leg-before before castling R. Sathish with a googly to reduce the Super Gillies to 37 for five in the sixth over.
Left-hander U. Sasidev then played sensibly scoring a fine half-century (58, 43b, 6x4, 2x6). He stitched an 82-run partnership with S. Harish Kumar for the eighth wicket but in the end, it was not enough to prevent a second straight defeat for his side.
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