CHENNAI: Riding on K Easwaran’s 3/11 and B Aparajith’s 63 Nellai Royal Kings defeated an off colour IDream Tiruppur Tamizhans by six wickets in a TNPL match played at Coimbatore. Tiruppur without their skipper Anirudha Srikkanth who is yet to recover from an injury failed to capitalise on the powerplay and posted a poor total.
Chasing 118 for a win Nellai achieved the target in clinical fashion with Aparajith making a polished half-century. This was Nellai’s fifth consecutive win. They have 10 points now and are the table toppers. “Very happy with the performance, we are sticking to the process and taking one game at a time. We got a good start in the power play. We won the power play and that made our job easier in the middle overs. Everyone stepping up, that’s a good sign,” said Aparajith after the match.
Kovai Kings win
Sai Sudarshan’s valuable 27 and Abhishek Tanwar 3/19 paved the way for Lyca Kovai Kings to defeat Ruby Trichy Warriors by five wickets in another TNPL game on Sunday evening. M Vijay’s 61 for Ruby Trichy Warriors went in vain as the rest of his team’s batters failed to convert the good starts. Chasing 136 for a win Lyca Kovai Kings began well with Ganga Sridhar Raju and J Suresh Kumar striking the ball with lot of confidence.
Once Suresh Kumar fell to Mathivannan, Raju too followed suit castled by Akash Sumra. This created a ripple effect as Kovai lost two more wickets and were in a spot of bother at 92/4. But Sudarshan and skipper Shahrukh Khan played sensibly and guided the team home. Earlier, put in to bat Ruby Trichy Warriors had a good start with Amit Sathvik and Santosh Shiv striking well.But after that the middle order failed to consolidate. Vijay coming in at No 4 put his experience to effective use. He milked 17 runs of a Shahrukh Khan over.
Brief scores: Trichy 135 in 19.3 ovs (M Vijay 61, Abhishek Tanwar 3/19) lost to Kovai 138/5 in 17 ovs (Sai Sudarshan 27); Tiruppur 117/8 in 20 ovs (Maan Bafna 37, K Easwaran 3/11) lost to Nellai 121/4 in 15.3 ovs (B Aparajith 63).