Vellasamy Vanitha, A girl from Karnataka made her first class debut in 2006, even played international cricket between 2014 to 2016 has made a remarkable comeback in the tournament final. Before Coming into this match, Her scores in the tournament read 0, 48, 36, 6 and 12 & those 12 runs she scored came off 24 balls.
Vanitha, a rebellion by nature, was determined to make a mark for herself by playing her own brand of cricket. She started whacking heron’s bowlers to all corners. She reached fifty in just 28 balls where her compatriot Roshini Kiran made a meagre 8. Vanitha smashed 11 fours & 3 sixers in her 49-ball 77. It was a exhibition of brilliant cricket.
Except Vanitha & Prathusha, no one reached a strike rate of 70+. Intact, Prathusha made 10 runs off 7 balls. It was purely Vanitha’s show. She got stumped on 15th over where the scoreboard showed 101/3. Heron’s bowlers capitalised this and bowled tight in next five overs as KiKi ended up with 132/8 in 20 overs. Pushpa kireshur 3/20 was the pick of the bowlers. Asha & Anagha snared two wickets each.
Heron’s batting was hugely dependent on their skipper Divya Gnanananda. She started off well by smoking 2 sixes & 4 fours in her 30 ball 37. She played same shot many and fell prey to Debs Dutta. Since then it’s a one way traffic. Dutta cleaned up the top order and Radha knocked over the lower order. From 47/2, they got bundled out for 92. Dutta & Radha shared 6 Wickets between them. Vanitha’s great innings paved the way for KiNi’s RR bowlers to lift the India Nippon T20 Cup.
Shame on Ntini’s teammates: Darren Sammy