CCL 2025 Day 5: Match 9 Punjab De Sher snatch a victory from the Bhojpuri Dabanggs

On the last day of Week 2 of the Celebrity Cricket League 2025, the scheduled matches moved to the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack. On the field for the first match were the Bhojpuri Dabanggs, who, after a win to start their campaign, got a royal drubbing at the hands of the Telugu Warriors in the second. A victory here would be necessary to keep their hopes alive. Their opponents – Punjab De Sher - were only on their second match. They’d lost the first, but showed that they could put up a decent fight even while going down.

Punjab De Sher’s first innings performance was far from stellar and while they could not contain the Dabanggs, the lead set was not too massive. Determined to turn things around, Punjab De Sher got a better score in the second innings, which, going by the high-scoring matches in the tournament, didn’t seem like much to defend, but that’s exactly what they did, when they managed to edge out the Dabanggs with a 13-run margin.

CCL 2025: Day 2 - Match 3 Bengal Tigers record second straight victory; make quick work of Punjab De Sher 

Harrdy Sandhu won the toss and decided to bat first – a decision he may have come to regret later, given that nearly half of the team total came from his bat. In their 10 overs, Punjab De Sher got to a low target of 81 only for the loss of 4 wickets, of which Harrdy scored 37 and 10 came from extras. The Punjab De Sher batsmen could not be faulted completely because the Dabanggs bowled tight and were very economical, giving away in the range of 10-11 runs per over only. Asgar Khan, for instance, gave away only 8 runs in his 2 overs and got a wicket too.

In response, the Dabanggs lost Pravesh early on for 8 runs, but Aditya (29) and Anshuman (38) put on a good partnership. Asgar’s bat did not yield many runs, departing with only 12 to his credit, and neither did Sudhir or Uday, and yet, the team got to 104-5, giving them a 23-run lead, heading into the second innings. Punjab De Sher gave away only 4 runs as extras, but that was not enough to keep the Dabanggs from getting to the target and beyond comfortably.

Also read: CCL 2025 Day 3: Match 6 Telugu Warriors successfully defend low target against Bhojpuri Dabanggs 

Given that they had a deficit to overcome, the Punjab De Shers should have been going all out and hitting the big shots. Harrdy Sandhu tried to give his team a good start, but once he was out scoring only 16, the batsmen seemed to be randomly knocking the ball around with no real intent to get a good score on board, which had the commentators also wondering what was up. At the end of 5 overs they were at 47-3 only, with a slim lead of 24 runs.

But then, as if they heard what the commentators were saying, Dakssh and Anuj shifted gears and the runs started flowing. Their partnership, worth 80 runs, was broken only in the last over, when Anuj’s mistimed hit landed in the hands of the fielder. Dakssh, who was doing most of the heavy-lifting until then, continued and got the team to 126-4, a lead of 103 and a target of 104 for the Dabanggs to secure a win.

For the second time in a row, the Dabanggs chocked in the second innings. Despite a good knock by Asgar, who got 43 of only 20 balls. With everyone else except skipper Manoj Tiwari scoring in single digits only, the target began to get further and further away for the Dabanggs. 89 for 6 is all they could get to in their 10 overs, after a very good penultimate over from Harrdy Sandhu, which all but sealed the deal for Punjab De Sher.

CCL 2025 will now move to Surat for the final group stage matches on February 22 and 23. At the moment, the Karnataka Bulldozers are at the top of the table with 3 consecutive wins, followed by the Bengal Tigers, who now play their third match, this time against the Mumbai Heroes in Cuttack.

Stream the matches live on JioHotstar.