Sporting Warriors 195 in 20 overs (Sam 88, Anil 46, Tinku 3/29) beat Game Changers 180/9 in 20 overs (Daleep 53, Rocky 4/33, Anil 2/14) by 15 runs.
When you are chasing a huge target of 196, your top-order has to fire. But things went absolutely upside down for the Game Changers as they failed to organise their chase and fell short of 15 runs. Their one of the openers should've stayed on the wicket atleast till the 10th over but the disciplined bowling from Rocky restricted them from doing so, Rocky destroyed their top order by dismissing the top three bastmen of Game Changers. Later, he also got rid of Virdhy who already had hit four sixes in his 26 run cameo. By the 12th over, Game Changers had already lost six wickets but there was one hope still remaining in the form of Daleep. But Daleep was a lone warrior in the chase, he was also dismissed in last over of innings after scoring a 40-ball 53. Virdhy and Rakesh, though added some runs towards the end, but it was very late by then.
Earlier, Sporting Warriors had no hesitation in electing to bat first. Though the way they started their innings, 195 was never on cards unless a miracle was there on. Warriors lost their four wickets for the score of 33 by seventh over, by then Game Changers had a firm grip over the batting side. Then there was a small partnership between Anil and Dana who added 48 for the fifth wicket, and as soon as Anil went into pavillion for 46, Sporting Warriors again lost wickets in cluster, by the end of 13 overs, they were 88/7. Till then, things went nowhere for the batting side, but the storm was about to come. Sam came for batting in 13th over, after that he literally smashed every bowler out of the park, he was hitting the ball like anything, he just took 35 deliveries for his 88 runs and turned the dice in Warriors' court. Sam hit ten sixes and four fours in his innings, in fact he was dismissed on the last ball of the innings. For the bowling, Tinku Kumar was pick of the bowlers with 3/29, Asif also picked up three wickets to his name.
This final will be remebered for a long time, how can a game change in a span of 40 minutes, we certainly witnessed today. Sam came out from nowhere and single-handedly won the game, he was the real superstar today. This was the fourth season of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Cricket Pratiyogita, these tournaments always help in encouraging the game in places like J&K. Let's see how it goes in next season, till then, cheers!
