B. Sai Sudharsan can’t do much wrong these days, and the youngster continued his purple patch with a scintillating 83 (41b, 8x4, 4x6) to set-up a thumping 59-run win for Lyca Kovai Kings against Dindigul Dragons here at the Salem Cricket Foundation ground on Sunday.
The 22-year-old’s well-composed knock and valuable cameos from the top-order powered Kovai Kings to 205 for six after being asked to bat first.
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The Dragons’ chase fizzled out within the PowerPlay when left-arm spinner M. Siddharth and pacer K. Gowtham Thamarai Kannan scalped two wickets each to leave the side struggling at 25 for four in the fifth over.
Shivam Singh (61) and C. Sarath Kumar (36) entertained the crowd for a while, smoking a few sixes during their 77-run partnership for the sixth wicket, but it was not enough for the Dragons to avoid a big defeat.
Earlier, the Kings got off to a flyer with openers J. Suresh Kumar (29) and S. Sujay (31) stitching a 49-run stand in quick time.
Despite losing two wickets in the sixth over, Sai kept up the tempo with consecutive boundaries off left-arm spinner Mathivannan before cutting Varun Chakravarthy (0/48) in the next over to get going.
The left-handed batter complemented his delightful strokeplay with smart running as he and U. Mukilesh (34) ran ten braces during their 85-run stand for the third wicket.
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While seeing off R. Ashwin, Sai went after Varun, hitting the mystery spinner for three sixes with a few neatly timed slog sweeps and blunted one of the Dragons’ main threats.
Against the pacers, he used the paddle and lap shots effectively to target the fine leg boundary. One such stroke off Saravana Kumar took him to his fourth half-century of the season from five matches and guided his side to the top of the table.
The scores:
Sai Kishore, Anirudh help Tiruppur Tamizhans over Tricky
In the second match of the day, quickfire half-centuries from R. Sai Kishore (50, 24b, 4x4, 4x6) and B. Anirudh (51, 25b, 8x4, 1x6) powered iDream Tiruppur Tamizhans to 46-run win over Ba11sy Trichy. Put into bat, Tiruppur amassed 201 for four, with Vijay Shankar chipping in with an unbeaten 31 (18b).
In reply, Trichy started well, getting to 59 for two in the PowerPlay but could not sustain the momentum afterwards. Left-arm spinners S. Ajith Ram (4-0-9-1) and Sai Kishore (0/21) squeezed the runs dry through the middle overs as Trichy slumped to its fourth straight defeat.
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