Left-arm spinner Rahil Shah’s spell of 4 for 12 helped VB Thiruvallur Veerans defeat Dindigul Dragons by five wickets in a Tamil Nadu Premier League match at the ICL grounds here on Friday.
The Veerans lost the toss but that proved a boon in disguise as Dragons was bowled out for 83. The power-packed Dragons' top order was rattled by the 10th over.
Dragons’ openers G.S. Raju and Subramania Siva couldn’t breathe fire early. Paceman Abhishek Tanwar sparked the downfall with a moving delivery, the first for the day, to Siva. He flashed his bat and gifted a simple catch to S. Siddharth, who fumbled a bit but hung on to it at first slip.
And, that pepped up the Veerans. It went for the kill by operating its spinners M. Rangarajan and Rahil from both ends. They bowled tightly and kept both Raju and N. Jagadeesan, the TNPL top scorer last season, in check for a few overs. After a period of lull, the Dragons accelerated the scoring with a couple of fours, and just when they were settling down, Rahil struck, trapping Jagadeesan lbw. A couple of overs later he bowled M. Ashwin with a beauty.
Dindigul had its back to the wall with a couple of run-outs. Rahil picked two more and medium pacer R. Silambarasan took a couple to complete the annihilation.
The Veerans’ openers N. S. Chaturved and S. Siddharth, chasing an easy target, started cautiously. And, the Dindigul bowlers attacked with vigour and managed to pull one in the team's favour. Speedster T. Natarajan had Chaturved holing to M.S. Sanjay at mid-off with only two runs on board. He came back later to bowl Hari Nishaanth.
But a nice-looking cameo from Siddharth (37, 4x4, 2x6) and some sensible play by Aparajith (28 n.o., 2x6), despite the fall of some quick wickets, saw the team through.
The scores
Dindigul Dragons 83 in 17.5 overs (Rahil Shah 4 for 12, S. Silambarasan 2 for 18) lost to VB Thiruvallur Veerans 84 for 5 in 14.5 overs (S. Siddharth 37, B. Aparajith 28 n.o., . Natarajan two for 12, M.S. Sanjay two for 20) by five wickets.
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