A thrilling encounter unfolded in the National Cricket League Sixty Strikes tournament, with the result being decided on the final over of the match. Angelo Mathews‘ Atlanta Kings came up against Dinesh Karthik‘s Dallas Lonestars, with the contest turning out to be a nail-biter. Batting first, Atlanta put a total of 124/5 on the board in 10 overs, with skipper Mathews leading the scoring charts for his team. Mathews added 68 runs to Atlanta’s total and took just 28 balls to reach the score.
Gajanand Singh, 15 off 8, and Danish Aziz, 16 off 5, were the other batters to help Mathews a little in the innings, though none of the Atlanta stars managed to cross the 20-run mark. For Dallas, former India spinner Pragyan Ojha was the star with the ball, picking 3 wickets for 24 runs in 2 overs.
Chasing the target, Dallas lost the wickets of Shoaib Maqsood and Samit Patel early though Colin Munro put in a fiery show at the top. He scored 66 runs off 26 balls to emerge as his team’s top-scoring batter. Dwaine Pretorious remained unbeaten till the end, scoring 40 runs off just 14 balls to help his side chase down the target with 4 balls to spare.
It was another night to forget for former India wicket-keeper batter and Dallas skipper Dinesh Karthik, who incurred a golden duck in the match. Since the start of the tournament, Karthik hasn’t shown the sort of form that made him one of the finest finishes in T20 cricket.
Saad Humayun was the pick of the bowlers for Atlanta, bagging three wickets for 5 runs in a single over. But, he couldn’t take his team to victory.
