TROJAN CRICKET CLUB

It was the game that Cardinal Knights fear the most and wanted to get over with. Cardinal VS Cromwell .

Cromwell Captain Ankith S Reddy won the toss and elected to field first and the decision was bang on as Cardinal Knights lost their opener Nishit Shah on the first ball of the game. It was the debut of Zahaib Akhtar who was the talk of the auctions and he joined PaRas Arora in the middle. Anurag Nayak bowled the second over of the match and got the wicket of Zahaib, the debutant failed in his match. The Cardinals could not believe their luck and the thoughts of another defeat against Cromwell Champs made way into their heads. Prateek Rohela made his way in the middle . Paras was quite destructive from the other end and kept on playing his shots. He cleared the ground with ease and the way he was hitting the ball was a delight to watch. Prateek started his innings in his usual way and started hitting the ball from the word go. A Mohammad Faizan got the big wicket of Prateek when he miscued the ball to mid wicket. The Cardinals were going at a brisk pace but the problem was that they had lost too many wickets in that process. Paras arora along with Prayut Patel were rotating the strike quite well in the middle overs. Ankith thought that the match is going away from him and gave the ball to Shanjay Kanagarajan. Shanjay bowled quite good lengths and got the wicket of dangerous Paras arora. Then came the man Cromwell feared the most ,Veteran Rana Aijaz. He started his innings with his trademark six over long on. The whole Cardinal was expecting some fireworks from him but Sagar Agarwal deceived him with a brilliant slow ball. Prayut also threw his wicket and the cardinal were in deep trouble at 88-6 in 9 overs. Sai Dev who was making his debut for Cardinal Knights were looking quite nervous but his team needed him to deliver and he did not disappoint his team. He played an excellent innings under pressure. Sumedh Deshpande supported him quite well. Some lusty blows from the lower middle ensured that cardinals go past the 150 mark on the board. Pooja Sinha also played a good hand .

Shanjay was the pick of the bowler for Cromwell Champs with the figures of 3-0-12-3

Cromwell started their innings with Nayan Rao and debutant Mohammed Junaid. Nayan rao was looking out of touch and cardinals wanted to see his back as early as possible. Prateek and Vaibhav gave the ball to Zahaib Akhtar and boy did he start in style. He was exceptionally well and got the prized wicket of nayan. Abhilash Vemulapalli was also bowled in the same over . The platform to break the jinx was all set for cardinals but they still had to go past Suhas B Shekar who is considered as one of the most dangerous batsman. Prateek was swinging the ball both ways and one of his in-swingers got the better of Suhaas,when he completed missed the delivery and the stumps were in the air. He got the wicket of Ahmed walir on the very next delivery. The Cardinals knew that they have got the match. It was just a matter of playing the 15 overs now. Ankith S Reddy and Dheemanth Narasimhan stabilized the innings but they were never able to score freely as the likes of Prayut patel and Vaibhav Oberoi bowled in right areas . It was too late for Cromwell when the needed 90 runs in the last 3 overs. The match was over and so was the jinx. 

It was a complete team effort from Cardinal Knights as they registered their first win of CPLSpring17. it was the day of debutants. Sai Dev and Zahaib Akhtar shared the honors of Man of the Match.