The 3rd T20 match of the Chhattisgarh Men’s T20 Invitation Cup is slated to take place between Kerala and Andhra on September 30. The game will take place at Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur and will kick off at 9 AM IST.
Kerala is right on top of the points table sitting with a comfortable NRR of 1.7. Kerala as a team was outstanding on the field in their preceding fixture against Jharkhand. Sourabh Tiwary and Nazim Siddique gave Jharkhand an ideal start but the wheels started coming off very soon.
Vinoop Manoharan accounted for the bulk of the damage picking up three wickets for just 13 runs while Pathirikattu Midhun picked a solitary wicket. However, the team showed some brilliant fielding effort which resulted in 3 run-out dismissals, and were eventually able to restrict Jharkhand to 131.
In response, Ajnas M top-scored scoring 48 (33), and got some good support from the skipper Sachin Baby who made a well-compiled innings of 32 (22) to steer Kerala to a comfortable seven-wicket win.
Andhra is second in the points table sitting with an NRR of 0.601. The Andhra bowlers appeared very lackluster at first giving away too many runs in the first half of the game.
Cheepurapalli Stephan, Harishankar Reddy, and Lalith Mohan were expensive with the ball and conceded at more than 10 RPO. The Andhra bowlers could only accumulate six wickets as Chattisgarh Red raced to 177 in their allotted overs.
In response, Ashwin Hebbar and Shaik Rasheed led the attack and launched a brutal assault on the Red’s bowlers. The duo smoked the bowlers to all parts and raced to their target in record time without losing too many wickets. Ashwin Hebbar was later adjudged Player of The Match for his breathtaking knock of 111 * (64).