TROJAN CRICKET CLUB

Put in to bat first, Vultures got off to a slow start, curtailed by the opening attack of the Cardinal Knights, until veteran Kamalpreet Kalsi came in to bat. Kalsi who had just returned to Cromwell that day was playing for both teams. He went on to score a fast 56 off 23 balls, and along the way was dropped thrice by Cardinal fielders. Along with a quick knock by Tarun Sandhu of 31 runs off 18 balls, Vultures was able to post a defendable 136 runs at the end of their innings.

Batting next, Cardinal got off to a good start with opener Sunil Iyer dispatching a few balls to the boundaries and made a quick 20 runs in 12 balls. However wickets started to fall at the other end. Siddharth Bafna, sent in to bat early also contributed with a steady 19 runs off 20 balls. Kalsi was unable to click for Cardinal and was quickly bowled out by Vulture skipper Mayur. At this point, without their star performer Akshay Satish, Cardinal was looking at another batting collapse. Cardinal skipper Gaurav Nilakantan came in to bat and got off to a slow start making only 7 runs of 14 balls and at that point Cardinal's chances seemed bleak with the required run rate well over 12 runs per over. However Gaurav suddenly found his rhythym and hit continuous sixes till the end of his innings, making 53 runs off 25 balls and brought Cardinal to the brink of victory. However he got bowled out by Tarun Sandhu and suddenly Tarun found his rhythym and with ruthless efficiency, dispatched two more Cardinal batsman in succesive balls, giving him a rare hat-trick in Cromwell. With just one wicket in hand and 5 runs to win off the last over, the match was up for grabs until Cardinal keeper Sagnik hit a six of Kalsi's first ball of the over, giving Cardinal the victory. For his explosive batting, Gaurav Nilakantan was declared man of the match.