Rangers thrash Neco Master Blaster by 10 wickets n By Paritosh Pramanik BHARAT Rangers’ ‘Speed Merchants’ Shubham Kapse and Nachiket Bhute bowled with vengeance under scorching heat to flatten defending champions Neco Master Blaster in a fiery opening spell of four overs. They shared six wickets between them as Bharat Rangers registered their second win of the tournament. For Neco Master Blaster, this was their second defeat in a row after their opening game loss to Pagariya Strikers. Title holders Neco Master Blaster could not withstand the early shock from Kapse and Bhute as they could muster only 123-9 after being asked to bat first. The meagre runs were chased down easily by Bharat Rangers in 11.5 overs and 10 wickets in hand. Captain Atharva Taide (62*) and Danish Malewar (51*) showed how to bat on the flat pitch as they walked off the field undefeated with two points in their bag. Taide hit pacer Sanmesh Deshmukh for four boundaries in an over to dominate the proceedings. The two then rotated the strike and frustrated Neco Master Blaster bowlers picking runs through gaps. Bharat Rangers raced to 50 in 4.4 overs with Taide doing the bulk of the scoring (31 runs) and then knocked off half of the required runs in powerplay. The captain completed his half-century in the 8th over with a couple off Gaurav Dhoble. Malewar then freed his arms and wanted to end the match in a hurry as he hit Shantanu Rajput for a couple of sixes and a boundary in the 10th over, all towards long-on fence. He, too, completed his 50 with a single off Dhoble pushing the ball towards long-on.

 

With 200 plus runs coming in each match since the start of the tournament, Bharat Rangers skipper Taide said at the toss that bowlers will have to bowl well if they need to win the match. And his bowlers answered their captain’s call with a stupendous effort. The duo of Kapse (4-0-24-4) and Bhute (4-1-12-2) shaped the ball enough to find edges of Master Blaster openers Vedant Dighade (6) and Adhyayan Daga (0) as wicketkeeper Vedant Jajoo pouched catches brilliantly. Dighade, who was later substituted by Dhoble, was the first to go on the fourth delivery of the innings after he poked his bat to a straight delivery. Next over Daga too perished to a brilliant diving catch by Jajoo off Bhute and then Bhute caught Tushar Kadu off Kapse for a three-ball duck. The Bhute-Kapse show entertained all as they took catches on each other’s bowling. Rangers then got the big fish in Neco Master Blaster captain Jitesh Sharma, who was playing his first game after skipping the opener. Sharma slashed a Bhute delivery towards deep third man into the hands of Kapse adding only four runs. Neco Master Blaster could manage just 26 runs for four wickets in powerplay and then crawled to 54 for five in 12 overs. By the end of 15th over they could reach 68-6 losing another wicket in Aryan Meshram who scored run-a-ball 38 runs. The Jitesh Sharma-led side could manage to cross the 100-run mark thanks to some wayward bowling by Manan Agrawal who conceded 34 runs in one over which included four sixes slammed by Vaibhav Chandekar, and six wide deliveries. Master Blaster will have to arrest their slide if they want to stay in contention for the play-offs.