Qualifier 2: FCC vs Dragons

The second qualified was played on Sunday morning with rain in forecast for the entire day. Luckily the rain stayed away with overcast weather throughout the day.

Dragons won their eliminator against Daredevils in a thriller on Saturday afternoon by chasing 148 in 19th overs with 7 wickets in hand. At the end of 18th over, Dragons needed 31 to win. Vick singlehandedly guided Dragons to a win by scoring 92* in 65 balls.

With the chase in mind, after wining the toss, Dragons put FCC into bat. Omesh & Rahul provided a steady start and collected 39 runs in the 6 overs of power play. Darryn was introduced in the seventh over and responded to captains call by picking up the wicket of Rahul who fell for 9 runs with the team score at 43. Anthony joined Omesh but Omesh fell soon after with a well-made 38 runs in 34 balls (3x 4s, 2x 6s). Anthony then picked up the scoring rate and built a partnership of 43 runs in 29 balls with Arun before getting out to Darryn after a quick fire 35 off 22 balls. Darryn was bowling a serious pace and line and length and was pick of the bowlers picking up 2 wickets in his 4 overs. Pintu joined Arun and both tried to up the runrate and Pintu fell to Vicky for a score of 13 in 10 and team score on 139 in 18 overs. Nitish join Arun at the crease and with some quick running between the wickets by both the batsman and lusty blows by Arun, FCC batsman gathered 29 runs in last two overs finishing their 20 overs at 168/4. Arun was the top scorer with 45* in 35 balls (1x 4, 3x 6s).

FCC was aware of the fire power at the top of the Dragons line up so knew they had to be very sharp on the field. Athula and Hari opened the batting and first over went for 15. Hari fell to Jyotish on the second ball of the over after hitting the first one for six at long on. Athul and Vicky built a strong partnership of 90 runs in next 13 overs before Vicky fell to Arun after scoring 40 runs in 27 balls. This was the opening FCC needed to get back in the game. Athula fell in the next over to Jyotish and Marlan and Sourabh in the following over to Arun. From 111/1 Dragons were now at 121/5 at the end of 17th over. Dragons needed 47 runs in 18 balls and needed a big over. Pintu gave 16 runs in the 18th over but picked up a wicket on last ball. It would be difficult to score at 16 an over for last two overs and Dragons lost by 5 runs. Arun (4-0-20-3) and Jyotish (4-0-30-2) were pick of bowlers.

Arun was adjudged man of the match for his all round performance. FCC advanced to the finals against PCCT which were played after a 20 minute break from the completion of this game.