Osians CC off to a thumping start in the Gannon Dunkerley Trophy on the back of Nirav Bheda’s blazing 91*

Played at the Brabourne Stadium vs Cricket Club of India on their own turf, it’s not the easiest of tasks to defeat teams on their homegrounds and Osians Cricket Club which is also an equally powerful and promising team both at the club as well as the professional level were up for an interesting competition.

Osian’s CC who won the toss elected to bowl first since the wicket looked good to bowl first while they also have a decent batting line up to chase down the score. CCI managed to score only 142/10 in 20 overs and that was also because of their opener T Patni who scored an anchoring knock of 62runs off 51balls. T Patni who smashed 8fours while did good running between the wickets lacked support from the other end as wickets were continuously falling from the other end. The bowlers did a nice job of restricting the batsman with Aditya Singh taking 3/29 in 4overs while V Shah and J Thakker taking 2wkts each.

Chasing 143 is 8 out of 10times achievable in T20’s but Osians were struggling badly at 24/3 and 59/5 at one point until their talented middle order batsman Nirav Bheda came in and played a gem of a knock. Nirav went on to score a thumping 63ball 91* which included 9fours and a six to take his team towards the victory line from nowhere. It was a really hard fought ton wherein he ran for almost 60% of his runs single handedly steering Osians to a win. Nirav kept on frustrating the opposition bowlers as he just kept on taking those ones and two’s not allowing the fielders or any bowlers to rest.

Eventually Nirav chased down the score single handedly reminding us of Dhoni & Kohli where in Osian’s crossed the victory line in 19.2 overs and won the match by 3wkts.

CRICKETGRAPH