CCL 2023: Karnataka Bulldozers register fourth win; send Punjab De Sher packing

The second match of the day was between the Karnataka Bulldozers and Punjab De Sher – the former a team that has won all three games so far, and the latter, with only one win to its credit, hoping to even find a slim chance of making it to the semi-finals on net run rate. On Jodhpur’s red clay pitch that supports batting, the Punjab De Sher chose to bat first after winning the toss. Their decision was spurred by the fact that the Bhojpuri Dabanggs put up a high-scoring, albeit one-sided, match earlier in the day.

The Bulldozers, though, are a formidable side and always take the field with a vision to win. And what they did is to restrict the Punjab team to only 80 for 7 wickets in their designated 10 overs. The top scorer for Punjab was Dev Kharod who got 20 of 14 balls, followed by Ninja B with 19 of 19 balls. Of course, the Bulldozers decided to make quick work of this target, with openers Darling Krishna and skipper Pradeep Bogadi getting them to 69 for no loss by the halfway mark and the possibility of putting up a formidable score. And only one over later, they’d crossed the target set by the Punjab team. The partnership was broken shortly after when Krishna was unfortunately run out. The Bulldozers lost Pradeep in the ninth over with the score at 106, 50 of which came from his bat. Coming in at number 4, Rajeev stepped on the gas from the word go. His cracker of a 33 run inning came of only 9 nine balls, taking the team to 140-2 at the end of 10 overs.

Returning for their second innings, team Punjab had their task cut out for them. They were already 60 short of the Bulldozers’ total and needed to add a formidable number of runs to that to give the latter some form of a chase. Punjab De Sher’s eventually got to a total of 100 runs, with the Bulldozers needing only 40 runs for a win. Rajeev Hanu who opened along with Kiccha Sudeep was determined to finish the match in a jiffy and got to 28 of only 8 balls before being clean bowled. Sudeep also departed soon after, but by then, the team needed only 10 runs for a win, which J Karthik and Bachchan got comfortably.

With four wins out of four matches in the league stage, the Bulldozers join the Bhojpuri Dabanggs as semi-finalists of CCL 2023. Tomorrow, in the last two league matches, the Chennai Rhinos will take on the Telugu Warriors and then the Bengal Tigers play the Mumbai Heroes. The Telugu Warriors and Mumbai Heroes have two wins each and will look at keeping their opponents at bay to book a slot in the semi-finals. However, if the Chennai Rhinos do pull off a win, the equation could change.