Chennai Superstars start ICL season -2 campaign, with a win over Mumbai Champs

The first match of the of the ICL 20-20 domestic tournament was played in the picturesque setting of the Jain international residential school ground Bangalore and featured heavyweights Chennai Superstars taking on Mumbai Champs. In the end it was the Chennai side that came up triumphs by 18runs, largely helped by a sparkling half century from captain R Sathish (58 off 46 balls; including 9 fours) & four Mumbai scalps by T Kumaran (4/28).

The Champs won the toss and elected to field, looking to take advantage of the virgin track. The Superstars got off to a disastrous start and were left reeling at 2/3 at the end of the second over. It was left to captain Sathish & dashing south paw Hemang Badani to resurrect the Superstars’ innings. Helped largely by the 76 run partnership of the two experienced campaigners; Superstars folded their innings at 143 /7 in their allotted 20 overs.

In reply, the Mumbai Champs lost wickets at regular intervals, largely wrecked by some disciplined bowling from Kumaran & Vignesh. The only significant contributions for the Champs came from their left hand opener Dheeraj Jadhav (36 runs off 36 balls) & a lower middle order fight back from Khirid & Paul (43 run partnership for the seventh wicket). In the end the Champs fell short of the modest target by 18 runs.