CCL 2023: Pradeep Bogadi leads from the front as the Karnataka Bulldozers crush the Kerala Strikers

Kiccha Sudeep and his boys in blue, the Karnataka Bulldozers, have some immense energy reserves; maybe they are superhuman. Wondering why? On February 24 and 25, the team members were part of a two-day cricket tournament of the Kannada film industry – the Kannada Chalanachitra Cup, which had 6 qualifiers and a final. All of them had hectic schedules, especially Pradeep Bogadi, who played three T10 matches on February 25 and Darling Krishna, who played two and led his side to victory over the former. The KCC finale and presentation ceremony ended really late in the night and the boys were on a flight to Jaipur before day break and playing a CCL match against the Kerala Strikers by afternoon. That’s some dedication, one must say.

This season of CCL is still a T-20 tournament, but the matches are being played in Test format, with teams getting two instalments of 10 overs each. The Kerala Strikers won the toss and chose to bat first, and just managed to scrape past the 100- run mark with a score of 101 in their designated first innings of 10 overs, on the back of Rajeev Pillai’s 54 of 32 balls. Chasing this target, the Bulldozers were set on getting a quick start and capitalizing on that to get a decent lead as well. Krishna and Pradeep opened and while the former perished after putting 20 on the board, the skipper powered through, adding 59 runs and losing his wicket with only one ball to go in the session. The Bulldozers ended their innings at 124, a lead of 23 runs over their opponents. Pradeep looked dog-tired after batting all 10 overs, but he was out within minutes to field again for the Kerala Strikers’ second innings, and even bowled a couple of overs and effected a run out too.

In their second innings, the Strikers managed a total of 105, most of which came from Rajeev’s bat yet again, and set the Bulldozers a total of 83 for the win. J Karthik and Rajeev Hanu came all guns blazing, determined to finish this match off quickly and getting to 65 for no loss in 4 overs. Kerala’s CCL veteran Vivek Gopan got Karthik out and two balls later sent Rajeev also back to the pavilion. The wickets came too late in the day, by which time, the Bulldozers were well on course to victory.

The team got to the target with three overs to spare at 86-2 and now have two victories in the tournament so far. The Bulldozers will now head back home for their league match against the Chennai Rhinos next weekend.