by The Professor » Sat Jul 30, 2022 8:58 pm
Today marked the end of the Pondicherry T20 tournament which can be seen as the feeder league to the feeder league of the IPL…. or as a money laundering scheme depending on your viewpoint.
It was a very one-sided tournament that ended in a very one-sided. Panthers had won 7 games, lost one and had two called off whilst Sharks had scraped through to the final with an equal amount of wins and losses across their ten games.
In a tournament where the Panthers had registered the biggest win in terms of runs (59 vs Tuskers) and in balls remaining (67 vs……also the Tuskers) their win by 6 wickets with 4 balls remaining looks comparatively tight. Oh and, by the way, the Tuskers did finish bottom, yes.
The Panthers really put on a team effort throughout the tournament which can be seen by the fact their dominance does not carry on into the individual honours. No batters for the Panthers finished in the Top 4 places on the run scoring table. Atop that tree sat the Bulls’ Marinuthu Vikneshwaran who scored 457 @ 47.7 with a high score of 73.
On the other hand, the Sharks were very reliant on key batsmen with both of the top two highest individual scores of the tournament being Sharks batters. Gonnabatulla Chiranjeevi scored the tournament high of 96…and then scored 5 today, whilst Mohit Mittan scored 83 early in the tournament and then was the top scorer in today’s match with a meagre 38.
In a fairly disappointing season for the Tigers, 22 year old Jullian Jacab was a shining light as he got the most wickets – 19 @ 12.73. Honourable mention also goes to Bulls’ bowler Bharat Sharma who finished 8th overall with 11 wickets but posted the eye-catching figures of 2.5-0-7-4 against the Panthers.
"It has been said of the unseen army of the dead, on their everlasting march, that when they are passing a rural cricket ground the Englishman falls out of the ranks for a moment to look over the gate and smile."