Unlike last weekend, batsmen dominated proceedings as three largely one-sided results headlined the action this week in the Advanced Offshore JCA cricket league. BLPL Mavecrics CC’s record team total, the fifth highest team score in JCA history, and Hariharasudhan’s hat trick, which helped Challengers CC to a win, were the key highlights.

The Mavecrics, who are undefeated so far this season, took on the winless Rebels CC. The Mavecrics elected to bat first after a delayed start due to flooding at the Mavecrics home base and their openers Keyur Moradia and Milind Shirodkar got off to a flying start, which was also aided by some wayward bowling. The openers kept up the momentum ensuring at least one boundary per over as they raced to a brilliant partnership of 183 for the opening stand in just 23 overs.

However, Keyur Moradia’s wicket did not provide any respite for a ragged-looking Rebels side, as Padmakar Surve upped the pace of attack along with Milind Shirodkar. The Rebels skipper, Anwesh Bose, had to bring himself into the attack and his double strike brought back some control.

However, he did not get support from the other end or from the fielders as Ankit Awasthi and Mohit Hotchandani kept up the onslaught. Anwesh ended up with five wickets including three in the last over and provided the only bright spot in a forgettable Rebels performance.

The Rebels chase of a mammoth score started slowly against some unplayable bowling from Keyur Moradia, who was making the ball shape around wildly. Padmakar Surve’s entry resulted in a double-strike in his first over and soon the Rebels were at 54 for four. Sujeet Ramgir and Prakash Vaswani put up a brief resistance but Padmakar returned to knock over a few more as he raced to a six-wicket haul and took his team to a huge 184 run win.

The first of two Division 1 T20 games played at the GMIS cricket ground started late due to a wet outfield and Menara CC won the toss and asked Challengers CC to bat first after the game was reduced to a 15-over affair. The Challengers openers batted brilliantly with Sakthiseelan playing an anchoring role while Gowtham Rajaram went on the offensive. They put on 112 runs and the Challengers finished their 15 overs at 130 for one.

Menara CC lost two wickets early but Mehdi Raza Baig and Muhammad Mubeen rebuilt the innings and at the end of 11 overs, Menara CC were very much in the hunt, needing 42 runs with six wickets in hand. Hariharasudhan then bowled a brilliant over where he took a hat trick and strongly tipped the scales in his team’s favor. Vimal Mohan wrapped up the tail as Menara lost their last six wickets for just 5 runs.

Metro Indians chose to bat first against GM Jaguar CC in the final game of the weekend and MS Arun and Prabhukaliraj got Metro off to a flying start, notching up 55 runs in the powerplay. Kirubasankar picked up the gauntlet on Prabhu’s dismissal and kept the foot on the accelerator, while some late order support from Ahmad Nur Arif and Sakthi helped the Metro Indians pile on a strong score of 181 in their 20 overs.

GM Jaguar CC reply did not start well with the prolific Nitin Sharma departing on the first ball of the chase. Aditya Khurana bowled tight lines and the Jaguars could only manage 35 for 3 in their powerplay. Irshad Birajdar and Karan Singh rebuilt well and were threatening to accelerate when Senthilvel fought back for the Metro Indians with a crucial double-strike.

Saulat Abbas then played a blinder hitting five sixes and was looking in ominous form, but his departure off Kiran Mandhare’s bowling swung the pendulum decisively in the Metro Indians’ favor, as they prevailed by 25 runs.

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