In the last game of the round one of the Lincoln Clarke Trophy 2020, Reforma defeated Aguilas by a huge margin of 69 runs after being invited to bat first on a cloudy afternoon. Let's see how it happened.
Strong batting performance
Reforma openers Pavan Chaitanya Satyavolu and Waseem Tabrez once again provided a good start to the proceedings by taking the score to 29 at the end 5th over. Shortly after, Pavan got run out when he couldn't return to the crease in time. His innings 19(20) included two smooth hits along the ground and a straight six. South paw Ketan Shan into the crease opening his innings with a boundary. He continued his class act showing the ball the way to the rope in the offside region, including a six over the backward point. At the other end, Waseem 20(27) did his job successfully by staying long at the crease and built the partnership of 55 runs (highest of the game) with Ketan, before he was cleaned bowled by Sanjay Wagh in 13th over. Reforma at 84/2. Next in batsman Daniel Buys 15(8) attacked the bowlers in his usual ways before he was out leg before wicket on a low full toss from medium pacer Lalit Sharma. While Ketan kept going on at one end and brought up his 50, the batsmen at the other end Jagdeesh Umanath, Captain Rama Krishna Inampudi and Nithin Kumar Shetty could not add many to the scorecard. Reforma 120/6 at the end of 17th over. Just when Aguilas thought they were back in the game, no.8 Dilip Nallapareddy played a cracker of an innings with some bold shots all over the ground which included a 'Dil Scoop' to fine leg boundary. Ketan's 60(49) along with blazing fast 25*(11) from Dilip helped Reforma finish on a high at 159/6 at the end of 20 overs.
Complete bowling performance
Chasing a steep target of 160, Aguilas openers Parijat Chakraborty and Junior National player Ignacio Richards (Nacho) were never comfortable with the pace attack of Reforma. Parijat 9(16) was caught out by the wicket keeper Daniel Buys off a raising delivery from Rama Krishna. Later, experienced batsman Shantanu Kaveri kept going with his usual ease and took the Aguilas score to 34/1 at the end of powerplay. Nithin Kumar struck Shantanu 12(11) leg before just after the powerplay. Nithin was also quick to send Nacho 6(19) to pavilion in the same over. Aguilas 41/3 at the end of 8 overs. Next in at no.4, Captain Sanjay Wagh attacked the Reforma bowlers with a six and a four to keep them on the backfoot. No.5 Lalit Sharma had a tough time at the crease and was clean bowled by bowling all-rounder Dilip with out adding any runs to his account. Afterwards, medium pacer Waseem Tabrez caught Sanjay off guard with a slow bouncing delivery which made him nick the ball to wicket keeper. Sanjay left the crease after scoring a quick 16(17). Next in to the crease, Manish Aryan couldn't stay long before he was clean bowled by Mainak Dalal who got his first wicket of the season. Aguilas 64/6 at the end of 15th over. With no other experienced batsmen down the order for Aguilas and target almost impossible to chase, it was time for Reforma to test their Mexican bowling talent. And it turned out to be a feast of wickets for the Mexican national Jeronimo Illich. After Nithin removed debutant Karthik in the 16th over, Illich struck twice off consecutive balls in his first over taking the wickets of Santhosh Kumar and Aman Singh. And in the final over of the innings, Illich struck again to take the final wicket of Aguilas in the form of Sai Santosh Yedida. All the three bastmen in the tail were out LBW. Aguilas all out for 90 in 19.3 overs.
27 extras given by the bowling side stood as the highest scorer for Aguilas. However, the bowling side in the second half of the game had a field day as 6 of the 7 Reforma bolwers have taken a wicket and the wicketless Satish Reddy was the best in terms of economy.
On a whole, Reforma put forward a strong all-round performance with both bat and ball to crush Aguilas by a margin of 69 runs. By winning all the three games of round one, Reforma tops the points table in the league while Aguilas secured the second spot.
Although umpires acknowledged the class effort of Ketan Shah 60*(49), Man of the match was awarded to Jeronimo Illich for taking 3 quick wickets in just 9 balls. Being a Mexican player, it's a huge achievement. Special mention to Junior national player, Nacho, for his brave effort to face the fast bowlers at such a young age.
For complete scorecard, team details and other stats from this game, click here.