Indonesia’s premier franchise based T20 league, the Indonesian Cricket League (ICL) kicked off its second season this weekend. Eight teams including two new franchises will compete with each other over a 3 month long tournament. Earlier, the teams had selected their players from a pool of 248 players through an auction.
The ICL was set-up with the view to providing budding Indonesian cricketers from across the country to compete, play & learn from more experienced expatriates. With this in mind, every team needs to play a minimum of 3 Indonesians players in every game.
One of these star Indonesian players, Anjar Tadarus shone brightly for Daehan Smashers in their opening game against Challengers Super Kings. Anjar & Hariharasudhan put on a fabulous 122 run stand for the second wicket to setup a great platform for the Smashers after they were sent in to bat. Sujeet Ramgir & Yeri Rosongna then helped CSK fight back with tight spells and Daehan Smashers eventually finished on 160 in their 20 overs.
The CSK openers were kept quiet thanks to some tight bowling by Gaurav Tandon & Hariharasudhan and they could only manage 32 runs in the first powerplay. Sujeet Ramgir tried to provide some acceleration but he had a lot to do and eventually CSK could only manage 140 runs in their 20 overs.
