Sharath lit up the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday, hitting 9 fours and 5 sixes on his way to an unbeaten 111 off 61 balls. He was well-supported by opener Rohan Patil, who scored a breezy 54 runs to ensure they chased down the target of 202 runs with five wickets to spare.
The trend of winning the toss and bowling first continued as the Mangaluru Dragons skipper K. Gowtham put the Mysuru Warriors in to bat first on a sunny afternoon. Opener CA Karthik was off the blocks in style and in no time raced to a quickfire 29 off 18 balls, helping the Warriors end the Power-play at a score of 54/2.
The fall of both the openers within the Power-play didn’t hamper the Mysuru Warriors’ progress as captain Karun Nair and southpaw Rahul Rawat kept the scoreboard ticking by adding 47 runs off 35 balls for the third wicket before the latter was stumped off the bowling of K Gowtham.
Tushar Singh put on a partnership of 55 runs off 37 deliveries with captain Karun Nair who was at his finest. Singh was then dismissed by a bouncer from Aditya Goyal in the 18th over.
Nair continued undeterred, tearing the bowling attack apart with a variety of crafty shots as he scored 77 runs off just 39 balls. Big-hitting Manoj Bhandage provided the perfect finishing touches scoring an unbeaten 10-ball 26 with two fours and two sixes to take the Warriors to a mammoth 201/5 in their 20 overs that included 52 runs in the final three overs.
In the second innings, the early departure of MG Naveen was the only positive for the Mysuru Warriors in the Power-play that saw the Mangaluru Dragons score 73 runs with both Rohan Patil, the Impact Player, and BR Sharath finding the boundary with remarkable ease.
The duo added 96 runs off 52 balls before Jagadeesha Suchith picked the wicket of Patil who had raced his way to 54 runs from 27 balls.
Sharath continued his destruction of the Mysore Warriors’ bowling, reaching his half-century in 33 balls with a six. He followed that up with three sixes in the 13th over of leg-spinner Kushal Wadhwani, who was the Impact Player for the Warriors. The fall of batsman Aneeshwar Gautam (6) to Jagadeesha Suchith brought KV Siddharth (14) to the crease who was looking good until he was out, caught and bowled by Shreesha Achar.
Sharath was dropped on 99 by CA Karthik and he made full use of the reprieve to bring up the first century of the tournament in 57 balls.
Anirudha Joshi (2) fell to pacer M. Venkatesh in the 19th over trying to finish the match with a six. Krishnappa Gowtham (5*) came in with the Mangaluru Dragons requiring just 5 runs to win off 9 balls and he made no fuss of it, helping the Dragons win by 5 wickets and 7 balls to spare.
Brief scores:
Mysuru Warriors 201/5 in 20 overs (Karun Nair 77, Codanda Ajit Karthik 29, Manoj Bhandage 26; Krishnappa Gowtham 1-30, Prateek Jain 1-35) lost to Mangaluru Dragons 202/5 in 18.5 overs (Sharath BR 111*, Rohan Patil 54; Muralidhara Venkatesh 2-36, Jagadeesha Suchith 2=37) by 5 wickets.
–IANS
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