TNPL 2022: It was not a 140 track – Srikkanth Anirudha

Idream Tiruppur Tamizhans captain Srikkanth Anirudh believes it was not a 140 track against Salem Spartans as he believes 165 would have been a par score.

However, Anirudh admitted that batting became difficult as the pitch was sticky due to rain.

ITT won against SS by a big margin of 32 runs at the SNR College Cricket Ground, Coimbatore on Wednesday in the 18th match of the ongoing Tamil Nadu Premier League 2022.

ITT posted 135-5 in their 20 overs after Salem Spartans captain Murugan Ashwin won the toss and decided to bowl first. Anirudha top-scored for his team with 32 runs and played despite the injury.

S Aravind scored 25 runs from 30 balls whereas Maan Bafna scored a run-a-ball 29 to help his team get past the 100-run mark. In fact, Anirduha and S Aravidn added 57 runs for the opening alliance but the team veered off the track.

On the other hand, Salem Spartans once again could not come up with a collective batting effort as they were skittled out for a paltry score of 103 runs. Ravi Karthikeyan top-scored with 36 runs but the rest of the batters failed to make any kind of contribution.

Srikkanth Anirudha said in the post-match presentation, “It is what is, I have to continue playing with it, no excuses [on his injured hamstring]. The rain played a big part in this, it was not a 140 track, we weren’t ready for it, when we came back, that’s why we lost wickets, we should’ve been a little smarter. I thought 160-170 was par, but we continued playing in the rain, due to the moisture it became sticky and also the weather here is not humid, it’s cold so we knew 140 was a very good score on this.”

On the other hand, S Aravind was awarded the Player of the match for his all-around performance. Aravind scalped two wickets and conceded only 12 runs in his quota of four overs. Furthermore, he had scored 25 runs at the top of the order for ITT.

He said after the game, “Feels great to be back bowling. I have always worked on my bowling, happy to have picked wickets. It held a bit, was a sticky track because of the rain and a bit of turn on offer. We were 15 runs short, 150 would’ve been our favored score. This was a really good bowling effort especially by the spinners.”

Meanwhile, SS captain Murugan Ashwin reckons it was a chaseable score but they didn’t get off to a good start in the PowerPlay overs. SS could not get going in their batting innings as they were reduced to 60-5 after 12.2 overs.

Ashwin said after the game, “It was within reach, was a tricky chase, we did not have a good powerplay, we did not have partnerships as well. So many dot balls in the powerplay is an area of concern, with the wicket sticking we should’ve gone hard in the powerplay. We need to bring in options and things we need to address.”