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akarta Cricket’s non-stop cricketing calendar witnessed its most active weekend of the season after 12 teams faced-off across 6 matches to kick-start the 2017 edition of the JCA T20 tournament. Viraj Bhammar’s unbeaten 104 headlined a high-scoring weekend.

The opening game saw the Jakarta Barbarians duo of Ben Burgess and Tim Gutsell put on a splendid unbeaten partnership of 153 runs and take their team to a seemingly winnable total of 190 in their 20 overs. WISCI Wanderers, still smarting from their loss in the Champions Cup, however, had other ideas.

Naresh “Gayle” Gupta started things off brilliantly, reaching 45 from just 19 balls. Muhammad Mehdi and Ben Burgess fought back with a few wickets, but then they had to contend with a brilliant unbeaten 115-run partnership between Kirubasankar and Bob Plath, who took WISCI home with 8 balls and 7 wickets to spare.

Some good bowling and regular wickets by the Mavecrics Menarian bowlers ensured that the WPP India XI batsmen didn’t run away with a high total.

Small but good contributions by most of the WPP batsmen ensured that their team got to a fighting total of 138 runs. In reply, Arun Rajain took early wickets and good spells by Mukesh Khetan and Maneesh Tripathi meant that the Mavecrics batsmen were never in the hunt. Vishav Sharma tried to fight back but he ran out of partners and WPP India XI ran away with an easy 49-run win.

Emerio Dragons roared to a huge first innings total of 210 thanks to a splendid 106-run partnership between Viraj Bhammar and Aman Singh and some fireworks by Amar Kapadia. Facing a daunting target, Indorama CC lost their openers to David Surjit in the first over. Vishvajit and Vinod Verghese fought back with a 95-run stand, but the deceptive Anji Katta and the spin of Aman Singh broke that partnership and with it, any hopes of an Indorama win.

Sharad Singla with support from Jagdeep Singh and Sandesh Pawar took Jaguar CC to a score of 168 runs in their 20 overs. Challengers CC, playing the T20 as the Daehan Super Kings, have become adept at chasing down any total. This time, it was Sidhu, playing a Bond-like innings of 88 not-out, and clearly preferring boundaries to singles, who stirred up the Jaguar attack, taking his side to a comfortable 5-wicket win.

In a fully Indonesian clash, the Indonesian National team (Garuda Gentlemen) took on the Indonesia B team (Yadavas Chairos Tigers). The young Hitsun rattled the Garudas early on and a couple of needless run-outs compounded the troubles for the Garudas.

Ramdoni and Arya Prastika fought back toward the end to take their team to a respectable 148 runs. In reply, Suda Arsa and Maxi Koda bowled brilliantly to snuff out any chance of a Tigers upset and despite some resistance by Andrew Sandi toward the end, the Garudas won comfortably.

Despite a bad start, knocks from Dihan Silva, Baba Sivasankaran and the ever-reliable Rajeev Kumar helped Ceylon CC reach 136 runs. Tight spells by Dhiraj Nagpal and wickets by Raj Kapadia and Murali were the key bowling highlights of the JCA President’s XI team.

The JCA president, Avakash used his reach to start things off well for his team and good knocks by Prabhukaliraj and Ajay Mishra had the President’s XI well placed until Hasmathullah triggered a middle order collapse. The experience of Raj Kapadia was needed to help his team win by 2 wickets.