Andre Siddarth turned 20 at Chepauk, and Kovai Kings won the TNPL final by 84 runs

VIDA Kovai Kings won the toss and batted, and for four overs it looked like the wrong call. Suresh Lokeshwar was bowled by P Saravanan in the third over. Radhakrishnan went two balls later, caught behind off Shoaib Md Khan. Thirty-four for 2 in a final, at Chepauk, against the side that had finished top of the table.

Two down for 34, and then Siddarth

C Andre Siddarth walked in at that point and batted for the next fourteen overs, and the game stopped being a contest somewhere in the middle of them.

Siddarth and Balasubramaniam Sachin then put on 117 for the third wicket. Sachin held one end and made 39 off 33. Siddarth did the rest of it, reaching fifty off 34 balls and finishing with 82 from 47, seven fours and five sixes at a strike rate of 174. He was stumped off Saravanan in the 18th over, by which point the innings had gone from 34 for 2 to 164 for 5.

Saravanan finished with 4 for 30, the best bowling figures in the match, and ended the night on the losing side. That is the kind of evening it was for Madurai.

A chase that lasted 86 balls

K Deeban Lingesh had R Ram Kumar caught behind off the first ball of the reply. Manimaran Siddharth bowled Siddharth Mahadevan in the second over. Madurai were 0 for 2 before anyone had settled, and 183 was already a long way away.

NS Chaturved and V Hari Ragavendra did try. Chaturved made 40 off 28 with three sixes, Hari Ragavendra 24 off 14 before he was run out, and between them they got the score to 75 for 4. Chaturved fell in the ninth over, and Madurai lost their last six wickets for 23 runs.

M Shahrukh Khan, the Kovai captain, took 3 for 10 in 2.2 overs to finish it. He had made 1 with the bat. Manimaran Siddharth took 3 for 18, Deeban Lingesh 2 for 30. Balchander Anirudh was left unbeaten on 24 off 25, watching from the other end as his side lost six wickets around him.

Kovai’s third title

This is Kovai’s third TNPL title, and it comes off the back of a playoff run that was close to absurd. In Qualifier 2 on Wednesday, Deeban Lingesh took a hat-trick with the first three balls of Trichy Grand Cholas’ chase and Trichy were 0 for 3. Two nights later Madurai were 0 for 1 off the first ball of theirs. Kovai’s bowlers have made a habit of removing the top of an innings before the game has started.

Sachin took the player of the series award with 428 runs. Siddarth took player of the match, which on a birthday and in a final is a reasonable haul. Madurai finished top of the points table and reached the final without having to win a playoff, because rain washed out Qualifier 1 and sent the higher-placed side through. They had not batted in a completed match since the league stage, and it showed.

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