Royal Strikers stops the Blasters juggernaut
Master Blasters suffered their first loss in CCL7 when they were beaten by Royal Strikers by 2 wickets. As has been the case throughout this season, the team batting second ended up as the winner.
On winning the toss, Strikers’ captain Ranjith E decided to field first. Linto and Sujith opened the innings for the Blasters. However the third ball of the match saw the former batsman getting dismissed while the latter got dismissed in the third over. Blasters captain Renjith Kumar, together with Abhin then got down to the rescue work. Both batsmen waited for loose balls to come while they milked the bowling with ones and twos when the bowling was good. Flurry of fours and sixes from both batsmen helped the Blasters to improve their run rate. They even looked to take the score beyond 100, but the Strikers’ bowlers pulled things back in the last 2 overs. At the end of the innings the Blasters was able to score 78 runs for the loss of 5 wickets. When Abhin scored 35 runs, Renjith made 30. Ranjith E took 3 wickets for the Strikers.
A target of 79 in 10 overs against a brilliant bowling unit as that of Master Blasters was always going to be difficult for any batting site. It was important to maintain a high run rate throughout the innings and the Strikers did exactly that in the beginning as first 2 balls of the innings were sent across the fence by Latheesh. Then the Blasters bowlers struck, sending 3 Strikers’ batsmen to the pavilion. Captain Ranjith along with Binish and Naveen moved the scoreboard along after the wicket of Vineeth. In the final over of the match, Strikers needed 9 runs to win with 3 wickets in hand. Though Basil sent back Ranjith in the first ball of the over, Daniel and Gopan took their team across the line. Abhin and Basil took 3 wickets apiece.
Ranjith E was declared the Man of the Match.
