Chandigarh: Scintillating knock of 71 runs off 41 balls by the skipper of KXIP Green Siddharth Chitnis enabled his team to defeat KXIP Red by 6 wickets and lift the trophy in the final played at PCA Stadium, Mohali here on Tuesday.
KXIP Green won the toss and put KXIP Red into bat. Seasoned complainer Chetan Sharma & Gurkeerat Mann gave there team a sound start as both added 32 runs in just 4 overs before Gurkeerat Mann (20) was caught by Ishan Malhotra off the bowling of Ajay Dalal. Chetan Sharma then joined by Abhimanyu Rana. Both played sensibly and rotated the strike very well and stitched a partnership of 93 runs off 60 balls. Rana scored 41 runs off 32 balls. Chetan Sharma (52) completed his 3rd fifty of the tournament with a classic off drive to fence. Soon after completing his fifty he was caught in deep by Malhotra off Wilkin Mota. R. Satish captain of Red team scored a brisk 31 runs off 21 balls enabling his team to pile up a handsome total of 163 runs in allotted 20 overs. Wilikn Mota was pick of the bowlers for Green team as he claimed 3 wickets for 26 runs.
Chasing to a good total KXIP Green lost there centurion of last league match Ishan Malhotra (11) cheaply as he was caught & bowled by Jatinder Mehta in 3rd over. Red team put some more pressure on Green team by taking 2 more quick wickets. Siddharth Chitnis and Karan Goel then steadied the ship with a match winning partnership of 105 runs. Chitnis was more fluent with his strokes as he scored 71 runs off 41 balls. His innings was studded with three huge sixes and four boundaries. Karan Goel remained unbeaten at his individual score of 43 runs off 39 balls with the help of 4 hits to fence as they achieved the target at the loss of 4 wickets with 13 balls to spare.
Siddharth Chitnis was adjudged Man of the Match for his delightful innings of 71 runs. Kuldeep Diwan elected as Best Bowler, Ishan Malhotra as best Batsman, Javed and Dhruv Mahajan for Best Catch and Prashant Chopra as Man of the Series.
Vishwajeet Khanna, IAS was Chief Guest of the occasion and gave away the prizes to the participants.
Brief Scores:- KXIP Red 163 for 6 in 20 overs (Chetan Sharma 52, Abhimanyu Rana 41, R. Satish 31, Gurkeerat Mann 20, Wilkin Mota 3 for 26, Rajesh Verma 1 for 23, Rajwinder Golu 1 for 29)
KXIP Green : 167 for 4 in 17.5 overs (Siddharth Chitnis 71, Karan Goel 43, Bhavin Thakkar 20, Kuldeep Diwan 2 for 38, Jitender Mehta 1 for 28, Mehjoor Ali 1 for 37).
