Devrajan stars in NAS victory
dubai — Devrajan Srinivasan was the toast of Nad Al Sheba Mammoths’ win over Jumeirah Mammoths in the third league of Mammoths cricket tournament being played at The Sevens ground in Dubai over the weekend.
The tournament is organised by Dubai Mammoths under the auspices of the Dubai Cricket Council.
NAS won the toss and to their good fortune four of their top five batsmen were in the thick of runs.
Opener Devrajan laid the foundation with a power-packed 51 from 48 balls while his partner Qais Farooq was equally dominating during his knock of 65 from 54 balls.
If the Jumeirah bowlers thought they could breathe easy after the two batsmen were back in the dugout they were mistaken as Prashanth Shetty’s destructive 53 from just 21 balls (4x6, 5x4) took the match away from their opponents.
Shajil Balan’s cameo 26 from 12 balls only added to Jumeirah’s woes as NAS reached 220 for 5 in 25 overs.
At one stage Jumeirah never looked like chasing that target with four batsmen out for 54 on the board. But Adnan Khan (25) and Sameer Khan (30) gave them some hope with a 41-run partnership and later Gaurav Rajkumar played an outstanding knock of 71 from 47 balls (4x6, 4x4) which gave NAS the creeps but once Gaurav was out it made life easier for NAS who managed to restrict them to 203 for 9 from 25 overs thanks to man of the match Devrajan’s four wickets.
In another close match Shindagha Mammoths beat Zabeel Mammoths by one wicket.
Put into bat, Javed Siddique struck 49 to help Zabeel, who struggled against some good bowling from man of the match Santosh Kotian (3-14) and Vinay Tolani (212), reach 117 in 20.3 overs.
Shindagha received a good start from Lucky Abbas (36) but faltered in the middle. At one stage they were 8 for 89 but Raj Dheeraj (18), Vinay Tolani (10) and Yuvraj Kurup took them home in 19.3 overs.
Navin Punjabi (3-23), Javed Siddique (2-25) and Abhay Chavan (2-51) bowled their hearts out but in vain.