TNPL 2023: Shahrukh Khan's all round show overshadows Vijay Shankar's three-wicket haul as Lyca Kovai Kings decimate iDream Tiruppur Tamizhans in opener

In the opening game of Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) 2023, Lyca Kovai Kings (LKK) thrashed iDream Tirrupur Tamizhans (ITT) by 70 runs, at the SNR College Cricket Ground, in Coimbatore. Shahrukh Khan, the skipper of Lyca looked exceptional with both bat and the ball to steer his team to a massive victory in front of the home crowd. 

Earlier, ITT skipper, R Sai Kishore, won the toss and invited the home side to bat first. P Bhuvaneswaran and Vijay Shankar gave an ideal start to Tamizhans as they picked up three wickets of the hosts inside the powerplay overs. With the fall of early wickets, Sai Sudharsan took the matter into his hands and stitched an 82-run partnership with U Mukilesh to bail his team out of trouble from early jolts.

In the last overs of LKK, Sudharsan and skipper Shahrukh played some fine strokes to help their team to dominate the visitors. Riding on the blistering knocks of Sudharsan (86 off 45) and captain Shahrukh (25 off 15), Lyca posted a decent total of 179/7 on the board. Shankar took 3/26 figures with the ball in his four-over spell and became the highest wicket-taker for Tamizhans.
 

Defending the total, LKK looked confident as K Gowtham Thamarai sent the Tamizhans’ opener, NS Chaturved, back to the pavilion in his first over. However, Tushar Raheja and K Vishal Vaidhya gave some tough time to their opponents but Shahrukh stepped up with the ball and provided a crucial breakthrough to his team with Vaidhya’s wicket in the sixth over of ITT’s innings. After Vaidhya’s wicket, Tamizhans’ batting unit started collapsing as M Mohammad took their main batters Vijay Shankar and captain R Sai Kishore in the next over. 

Shahrukh decimates ITT with his wicket-taking and thrifty spell

In LKK’s huge 70-run triumph, Gowtham Thamarai started the proceedings by giving an early jolt in the form of Chaturved. Thereafter, the visitors were unable to recover as Shahrukh Khan joined the party by scalping Vaidhya. Notably, by the end of the ninth over, Tamizhans were 57/6 which completely derailed their run chase.

Shahrukh donned the role of wrecker-in-chief with the ball and grabbed 3/20 figures in his four overs. After Scalping Vaidhya’s wicket, he also dismissed Balachander Anirudh and S Manigandan to bag a comprehensive victory for his team.