Dubai Mammoths win; Mavs, Roaring Lions tie

dubai — The 3rd DCC Silver Challenge Cricket Tournament got off to a mouth-watering start. The first two matches produced such scintillating stuff that it had the spectators at the edge of their seats with one match ending in a tie and the other in just a five-run win.

In the first match of the six-team single round-robin tournament being played with the pink ball under lights at the Dubai Sports City, Dubai Mammoths pulled off a thriller against Farooq CC.

Opting to bat on winning the toss, Dubai Mammoths saw three of their top batsmen – Nalin Khaitan, Javed Siddique and Lucky Abbas – returning to the pavilion without troubling the scorer.

Man of the match Ambey Parwatkar (42) and Shajil Balan (33) pulled the team out of a hole and Abid Choudhary’s quickfire 23 from 9 balls which included two sixes and a four helped them post 134. But with Tushar Tugaint (28) and Nabil Iqbal (29) giving Farooq a solid start it looked like a cakewalk win for them until both departed which resulted in some hara-kiri from the other batsmen as there were four run-outs.

Clive Alfonso (34) and Siddarth Tugaint (22) tried to shoulder the burden and take their team home but in vain as they ran out of overs and were restricted to 129 for 8 in 25 overs.

In another match Mavericks with contributions from man of the match Syed Danish (54) and Asad Badani (43) totaled 193 for 7 in 25 overs. It looked a healthy total but Karthik Srinivasan (43), Deepak Nicholas (35), Hashim Ahmed (33) and Rajeeb Naug (23) made a match of it and almost won it for their team but for some good bowling from Mavericks in the death overs that enabled them to pull off a tie.