CHENNAI: NS Chaturved starred with the fastest century (40 balls) in the Tamil Nadu Premier League as Madurai Panthers defeated Vida Kovai Kings by six wickets in a high-scoring thriller in Dindigul on Saturday. With 16 runs needed off the last over, Balachander Anirudh gave the finishing touches by slamming two sixes off RS Ambrish to guide Madurai home.
For Chaturved, that ton is a culmination of the sacrifices he made in the last few years. During his time with theAccountant General Office's team, the side got relegated to the second division. Chaturved could have always prioritised employment in the Central Government and played lower divisions, but decided to let go of it to keep playing in the first division.
Additionally, he was selected to play for Tamil Nadu in 2019, but could not get a consistent run of matches ever since. "Very delighted to contribute to the team's win. We were confident and determined to chase down the total (of 239). After Ram Kumar got out, Siddarth Mahadevan and I got going. The plan was to attack the right ball and try to play till the end," an elated Chaturved told this daily from Dindigul. Chaturved is usually known to play straight. But on Saturday he was a different player. He shed his inhibitions and stepped out to the spinners, even at times to the medium-pacers and carted them all over the park. "I changed my approach to be more relevant to T20. That's why I stepped out to play my shots and put pressure on the bowlers. Before the TNPL, I had practiced power hitting and that came in handy," revealed Chaturved.
When well set to finish the job, Chaturved stepped out to drive Jhathavedh Subramanyan, but missed the line and was stumped by Lokeshwar. "With Anirudh around we were confident that we would cross the target. There was no panic and Anirudh played in a polished way to bring about the win," Chaturved added.
Earlier, Vida Kovai Kings overcame the early dismissal of Abhinav Kannan as S Lokeshwar (38), B Sachin (84) and Andre Siddarth (87 n.o) contributed to a challenging total. The pair of Sachin and Andre added a 143-runs for the third wicket.
Brief scores: Vida Kovai Kings 239/4 in 20 ovs (Andre Siddarth 87 n.o, Sachin 84; Gurjapneet 2/41) lost to Madurai Panthers 240/4 in 19.3 ovs (NS Chaturved 121; Jhathavedh Subramanyan 2/32); SKM Salem Spartans 152/9 in 20 ovs (Kavin 38, Hari Nishaanth 36, Sanjay Yadav 2/18, Antony Dhas 2/25) lost to Trichy Grand Cholas 155/3 in 17ovs (K Rajkumar 67 n.o, J Kousik 46).
