WISCI Wanderers took on Senayan CC in a top of the table clash among the top two teams of last year’s league. With two centurions & more than 500 runs scored in a day, the match did live up to its top-billing and ended up being one of the best games of cricket seen recently in the league.
After they chose to bat, WISCI set about constructing their innings in a very measured fashion. The fall of the openers saw the entry of Vinayak Sasitharan, whose superb ton in just his 2nd JCA match, played a pivotal part in the WISCI innings. Vinayak started cautiously preferring to rely on singles in his 70 runs partnership with the experienced, Rajeev Rajeswaran & waited till the last 11 overs to accelerate. He and David Holme flayed a tired looking Senayan attack to all parts of the ground as a whopping 120 runs were scored in the last 11 overs.
WISCI would have fancied their chances of defending 255 runs on a large ground and were looking well on course when the dangerous, Viraj Bhammar played down the wrong line to a Suhail Modak delivery. The big hitting Amrithanand entered with a big task ahead of him as Senayan needed 196 to win in 23 overs, an asking rate of more than 8 runs an over.
A batting masterclass followed, where Amrit mixed caution with the right amount of risk as he shepherded his partners and the team towards an improbable target. 102 runs were needed of the final 11 overs, but WISCI had already used up their main-line bowlers. Amrit & later, Raj Kapadia, capitalized on the 5th bowler and took their team home with 3 balls to spare, with Amrit remaining unbeaten on 125 which came off just 70 balls and included 7 huge sixes.
