Throughout the Tamil Nadu Premier League season this year, TUTI Patriots dominated their opponents and reached the final without losing a single match.
They continued to better their performance with each and were the favourites in the final against Chepauk Super Gilles.
But, as fate would have it, the unbeaten team of TNPL 2017 lost the final against Chepauk and finished second in the tournament which looked theirs.
CSG chased down the final target of 144 runs in 19 overs with six wickets in hand to be crowned as the winners of the second edition of TNPL.
Patriots captain Dinesh Karthik won the toss and elected to bat in Chennai hoping that his batsmen will put up a competitive total as they had in league phase. The strong batting line-up of Patriots had to face some top class bowling from CSG. The bowlers — especially the spinners — set up the match with some tight line and length.
Washington Sundar, who had impressed everyone with both bat and ball in the league, was once again looking good for Patriots but he failed to judge a slower ball from R Sathish and was caught at mid-on. A small rain break took the momentum away from Patriots and they slipped to 52 for the loss of two wickets after seven overs with Kaushik Gandhi falling for 24.
Abhinav Mukund, who joined the team after playing the Test series for India against Sri Lanka, played a handy knock of 41 runs but took 38 balls. But, after his wicket in the 14th over and at the score of 95, Patriots failed to capitalise in the final overs and made only 143 runs.
The chase for CSG was not an easy one as their openers began on a cautious note. Gopinath and Thalaivan Sargunam took their time in the powerplay and had added only 46 runs from eight overs. The latter fell in the ninth over for 16 runs.
Like Patriots, CSG were also slow and were 93 for the loss of four wickets in the 16th over with Gopinath falling after his half-century. But, captain Sathish and Sathiamoorty Saravanan managed to not lose their wickets and with CSG needing 22 off the last 12 balls, launched an assault.
Saravanan was on strike with his team needing 15 off the final nine balls. Sundar was bowling the penultimate over and Saravanan hit the fourth ball of his over for a six.
He followed it with another six before sealing the match and the title for his team with a four. He was also declared the man-of-the-match for his 10-ball 23.
17-year-old Sundar was declared the man-of-the-tournament as he was the highest run scorer and second highest wicket-taker in the tournament.
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