Karaikudi Kaalai thrash Madurai to cruise to a 52-run win

Madurai Super Giants’ wait for the first taste of victory in the TNPL continues as they registered their 4th straight loss. Karaikudi Kaalai bagged their 2nd win a 52-run win with an all-round effort.

In the first game for the both the sides at Chepauk, Karaikudi won the toss and elected to bat. M Vijay Kumar hit 3 boundaries in his 13-ball 17 before being trapped in front by Muruganantham. Captain Badrinath walked out with the responsibility of building the innings. The Karaikudi batsmen struggled to score off Madurai spinners as the runs coming became tough. Left-arm spinner Maan Bafna struck twice to put the opposition in tatters. First, R Srinivasan holed out to long-off after scoring just 15 in 21 balls. Badrinath holed out for 24 off 27 balls to long-off as well after Suresh Kumar dropped a return catch in the previous over.

Vishal Vaidhya’s painful 10 off 17 balls came to an end after he was stumped off Edward Kenny. Vaidhya was dropped twice and survived a run out chance. Karaikudi were going under 6 an over at the 15th over but R Rajkumar played a blistering innings to take his side towards a good total. Rajkumar struck 4, 6 and 4 in consecutive balls in 16th over and a six and four in Muruganantham’s over.

The 18th over from Palani Amarnath started with Rajkumar smashing a four and six following it with a six on the fourth ball. However, the next ball brought and end to his innings of 46 from just 19 balls with 4 fours and 4 sixes as he tried to slog again but ended up disturbing his stumps.

Raja picked up Anirudha and Ganapathy’s wickets in consecutive balls as Karaikudi’s innings once again went quite. They finished at 149/7 in the restricted 20 overs.

Karaikudi’s left-arm spinner Mohan Prasath ran through the Madurai’s top order. In the 2nd over itself, he cleaned up both the openers Thiyagarajan and Arun Karthik. In his next over, Mohan sent back Suresh Kumar. Rajkumar, Suresh Babu and Sonu Yadav picked up a wicket each as Madurai Super Giants were struggling at 60/6 at the halfway stage with their captain Shijit Chandran was left staggering at one end.

After a sparkling innings, R Rajkumar carried on it with a 4-wicket haul as Madurai were bowled out for 97 runs. Captain Chandran was the top scorer for his side with 43.

R Rajkumar bagged all the awards (Most 6s, Most 4s and Man of the match awards) for his superb all-round show.

Brief Scores:

Karaikudi Kaalai – 149/7 in 20 overs (R Rajkumar 46, S Badrinath 24; Maan Bafna 2/14, M Raja 2/33)

Madurai Super Giants – 97/10 in 16.1 overs (Shijit Chandran 43; R Rajkumar 4/19, S Mohan Prasath 3/14)