The batsmen finally struck back this weekend, leading to some close games and wins for Yadavas Senayan CC, Challengers CC, PHM Jaguar CC, Jakarta Barbarians & Mavecrics CC.

In the marquee clash of the weekend, WPP India XI would have been happy to dismiss Viraj Bhammar early in the innings. But his dismissal, got together the Singapore captain, Chetan Suryawanshi & the Indonesian captain, Gamantika Kadek who counter-attacked well and ensured Yadavas Senayan CC put up a big score of 168 in their 20 overs. Though, they took wickets regularly, the WPP India XI bowlers couldn’t keep the runs in check.

The second innings then saw one of the best, fighting knocks in the JCA League as Pallav Malhotra strode like a Phoenix among the ashes. As he kept losing partners at the other end, Pallav waited patiently, for the right moment to explode. Needing 80 to win off the last 5 overs, he felt the time was right to test the size of the GMIS ground, hitting sixes at will and scoring 66 runs in 4 overs. Tragically, too much was needed of the last over, and a great knock went in vain.

The PHM Jaguar CC batting finally clicked with all the batsmen contributing to take their side to a good score of 202 in their 35 overs. Naveen Jindal topscored with 38 while Bhagat Singh Londhe was the pick of the Metro Indian bowlers. In reply, when Rehan Ghaffar got rid of the dangerous Kirubasankar, the Jaguars would have hoped for an easy win. But, Dhanasekar & Sabu Joy had other ideas as they put on a strong fightback. Naveen Jindal’s penultimate over which went for just 2 runs, put paid to Metro Indians fight as they fell short by 7 runs.

Very good bowling by the Challengers CC trio of Satheesh Kumar, Sunil Samtani & Chander Pandey ensured that Emerio CC could only manage 128 in their 35 overs. In reply, the Emerio CC bowlers, led by David Surjit, kept pegging away with regular wickets, but Chander Pandey who is a having a dream run, did enough with the bat to take Challengers CC to a hard fought 2 wicket win.

It was the turn of Vivek Nair to shine with the bat as he plundered the Menara CC bowling to hit 95 off just 53 balls. While he decided to not run & clear the boundaries instead, five of his team-mates had other ideas as they decided to run themselves out. Jakarta Barbarians, score of 172 in the end proved too much for Menara CC as they could only manage 126 in their 20 overs.

Abhishek Sharma & Sandeep Kukkar had the Mavecrics CC batting struggling, until Samir Sharma & Hetal Patel put on a rear-guard fight to take their team to a below-par but fighting total of 121 in their 35 overs. Fantastic bowling led by skipper Keyur Moradia with support from Nimesh Shah & Rani Sathish ensured that the Indorama CC batting failed again and Mavecrics won by 25 runs.