Lyca Kovai Kings (LKK) beat Dream Tirrupur Tamizhans (ITT) by 70 runs in the first game of the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) 2023 at the SNR College Cricket Ground in Coimbatore. Shahrukh Khan, who was the captain of Lyca, did a great job with both the bat and the ball as he led his team to a huge win in front of the home crowd.
R. Sai Kishore, the captain of ITT, won the toss and told the home team to bowl first. Tamizhans got off to a great start when P Bhuvaneswaran and Vijay Shankar took three wickets from the hosts in the first five overs. When early wickets were lost, Sai Sudharsan took charge and put together an 82-run partnership with U Mukilesh to get his team out of trouble.
In the last few overs for LKK, Sudharsan and the captain, Shahrukh, hit some great shots that helped their team beat the guests. Lyca made a good score of 179/7, thanks to the big hits of Sudharsan (86 off 45 balls) and captain Shahrukh (25 off 15 balls). Shankar took three wickets and 26 runs in four overs, making him the player who took the most wickets for Tamizhans.
K Gowtham Thamarai sent the Tamizhans’ opener, NS Chaturved, back to the dugout in his first over, which gave LKK confidence as they tried to defend the total. But Tushar Raheja and K Vishal Vaidhya gave their opponents a hard time. Shahrukh stepped up with the ball and got Vaidhya out in the sixth over of ITT’s innings, which was a big break for his team. After Vaidhya was out, Tamizhans’ batting started to fall apart. In the next over, M. Mohammad got rid of their best batters, Vijay Shankar and leader R. Sai Kishore.
Shahrukh Khan destroys ITT with his wicket-taking and economical bowling.
LKK won by a huge 70-run margin. Gowtham Thamarai started things off by causing an early shock with Chaturved. After that, the hosts couldn’t get back on their feet because Shahrukh Khan joined the party and killed Vaidhya. Notably, Tamizhans were 57/6 at the end of the ninth over, which stopped their run chase totally.
Shahrukh was the most destructive player with the ball, getting 3/20 in his four overs. After getting rid of Vaidhya, he also got rid of Balachander Anirudh and S Manigandan, giving his team a big win.