Strikers started the T40 Season with a Win
After a great RCC tournament, Strikers entered into T40 Season with positive energy and that was clearly visible in the first game. Winning the toss, Strikers captain opted out to bowl first and their opening bowlers backed the captain decision by picking up a wicket in the 3rd over. By the end of powerplay(8th over), WCC were 29/2. WCC tried to show some resistance but Strikers picked up wickets in every now and then. At the end of 20th over, WCC were 78/4 with one settled batsmen(Sumit - 19 (36)). Immediately after the break, Strikers bowled even tighter lines and next 5 overs, WCC could only get 14 runs and lost their settled batsmen. Eventually, WCC was down to 117/6 by 32 overs. Strikers tried to bowl them out but Paritosh(25/22) showed resistance in the end and got them to a decent total of 172/9 by the end of 1st innings.
![[Game Picture]](/images/gallery/Strikers T40 2021/strikers_t40_game1.jpeg)
Strikers started the chase with a slow start as Abhishek dhar and Avinash nigam were moving the ball both ways beautifully. Strikers lost Raki at the end of 8th over and were looking troubled with a score of 19/1. Strikers started to accelerate by Divyesh hitting a 6 in the 9th over and Raghu hitting a 4 in the next over. Since then, strikers never looked back. Divyesh was looking good with 39 (49) when he got out for an LBW. Avinash came in and stabilized the innings but right before the break, Raghu played a cross bat and got out for an LBW. At the end of 20 overs, Strikers were 101/3 with 72 runs needed from 20 overs. Things were going as per plan and suddenly Avinash got out to a mis hit in 24th over after hitting a beautiful six right before that. Sai Shankar came in and Prashanth was playing cautiously. Shankar almost sealed the deal with his explosive sixes but got out to keeper catch with 30 needed in last 12 overs. Sunny came in and both batsmen were rotating strike and making sure strikers dont lose any more wickets. Prashanth got a go ahead from the captain in the 32nd over to accelerate things and he responded immediately with a 4 and 6 off the same over. Strikers chased down the total in 33.2 overs with 4 wickets remaining.
Highlights
1. Srikanth bowled beautifully with the new ball. He got good control of the swing and bowled good lengths. 2. Abhinav showed that he can be the fast bowler of the team. His pace and his lengths were very good. 3. Avinash bowled an important spell(4 overs, 1 maiden, 6 runs) with new ball. 4. Everyone in Top order and Middle order played sensibly(especially Shankar :P) and contributed to the team
Kishore Kumar Kolipaka
Kishore Kumar Kolipaka joined Bellevue Cricket Club in 2018 and has played for all 4 club teams, captaining multiple squads. When he's not dominating matches for the Strikers, Blasters, Chargers, or Smashers, Kishore works as a Data Engineer at Amazon