Hyde Park 65/10 in 13.3 overs (Prince 28, Abid 17, Ashwani 3/5) lost to Emerging Strikers 68/3 in 7.4 overs (Rahul 29, Piyush 19, Naveen 3/26) by 7 wickets
The seventh season of Independence cup concluded at the NCG with Ashwani Rajput and his team thrashing Hyde Park by 7 wickets in a one-sided game. A match where each inning was supposed to be played across 20 overs, had that many across the game.
The tournament was played for over 45 days and 34 participants. The teams were split across four Groups with 8-9 teams in each group. Hyde Park entered the finals undefeated from Group C while Emerging Strikers remained undefeated in Group D. So, since we had two teams yet to taste a defeat, the final was expected to be mouthwatering encounter.
As we entered the finals, Hyde Park won the toss and elected to bat first. They had a horrible beginning as they lost three of their top batsmen with just 2 on board. While Yuvraj and Balraj scored a run each, Vicky was dismissed for a duck. A 27 run partnership between Prince and Abid stabilized the inning but that was momentary relief. This partnership remained only a decent partnership of the inning and Hyde Park were bundled out for 65 in the fourteenth over. Prince played a fighting knock of 28 for them. For the Strikers, Ashwani finished with the figures of 3-1-5-3 while Amit chipped in with 3 wickets at an expense of 6 runs too. Ujjwal and Mahesh shared two wickets between them.
Defending 65 in a T-20 game is not an easy task (not an easy task in any format of the game). For the followers of Hyde Park, the game was over in the first inning itself. They managed to remove Arun early but a 36 run partnership between Rahul (29) and Piyush (19) nailed the game for Emerging Strikers. Naveen managed to dismiss both these batsmen but it was too late to have any impact on the game. Strikers got home in the eighth over of their inning and a tournament that was full of some spectacular games, signed off with a one-sided encounter.
