Manu Warriors 80/10 in 10 Overs (Vicky Atwal 23, Vishnukanth 18, Md.Mukaram 3/21) lost to Mailoor CC 81/3 in 6 overs (Anwar 45, Shaik 14, Yasar 1/15) by 7 wickets
The small town of Bidar on the border of Telangana and Karnataka is famous for the Bidar Fort which was built way back in the 14th century by Sultan Alla-Ud-Din Bahman. The town, however, is not just famous for the fort but in the 21st century, it’s famous for the Bidar Premier League which is played for Dr. Ambedakar Trophy. The 2019 season of the tournament saw 12 teams split across two groups who went head to head in a league cum knockout format at R.S Ground, Shahpur gate ring road.
The final was a rematch between arch-rivals from Group A. Manu Warriors topped the table after winning four out of their five games while Mailoor CC were ranked second and the only game they lost was against Phenix CC where they failed to make it to the ground on the game day. Their game against the table-toppers was washed out but still, a game between the top two teams of the same group attracts attention.
The quest for the trophy began at 5 PM local time today. Mailoor CC won the toss and they elected to field first. Manu Warriors lost their captain of the very first ball of the inning. Vishnukanth (18) and Vicky (23) stitched down a partnership of 31 for the third wicket. The pair exhibited some glorious strokes through covers and midwicket regions of the ground.
Sameer got rid of Vishnukanth in the third over when he tried to clear the ropes. Ravindra could not stay there for long and Vicky followed him. Regular wickets meant the Warriors failed to accelerate the way they would have liked to but still ended up scoring 80 runs from their quota of 10 overs.
80 can’t be considered as an easy total to chase but the tournament regularly saw some towering scores throughout. Manu Warriors themselves gunned down 145 against the Phenix CC during the league phase. If you consider these scores as evidence, surely the pitches used for the tournament were featherbed for the batsmen and 80 was not a massive total by any mean.
If you followed the Warriors throughout the tournament, they defended targets lower than 80 at times. They defended 88 twice while against the Mohammedan CC, they defended a score of 57. So without a doubt, their bowling unit was confident of defending the target. Asif and Amer (Nah, not those guys from Pakistan) walked out to open the inning for the Mailoor CC and the pair got the team off to a great start. They added 19 of 13 balls before Atwal removed Amer.
The departure of Amer bought in Anwar to the crease and it was his partnership with Asif which took the game away from the Warriors. The pair gunned down 41 runs off just 12 balls and by the time Mohammad Asif (11) got out, the game was almost over. Anwar dominated the partnership as he smashed 21 off the Atwal’s third over. Akshay, who came in to deliver the fourth over was treated similarly. He gave away further 20 and these 11 balls dragged the required run rate well below 6. In fact, by the time fourth over ended, Mailoor CC required just 20 off next 36 balls.
Rajkumar managed to remove Anwar in the sixth over but his job was done. The demolition man walked back to a standing ovation after a magnificent 45 off 14 balls and single-handedly crushed the Warriors.
