Lakshay Thareja wins the battle with batting brilliance against Sarthak Ranjan and New Delhi Strikers

A last-ball finish gave the match between New Delhi Tigers and New Delhi Strikers at Arun Jaitley Stadium the much-needed excitement as it could at best be described as a dead rubber with both teams already eliminated.

A match which had no bearing on the points tally generally gives less incentives to the players already out of the tournament. It must have been more of who has the upper hand and with Delhi Capitals’ scout Iqbal Abdullah watching with keen eyes, there was no shortage of incentives for the players.

The Tigers won the toss and chose to bowl. Strikers, who were playing without their regular captain in Harshit Rana, started off brightly closing out the powerplay at 61 without losing any wicket with Sarthak Ranjan being the aggressor.

The Tigers clawed their way back with wickets at regular junctures but Sarthak Ranjan continued with the consistency he has batted the whole tournament with 4 50s already, finally breached the 3-figure mark scoring 100 off 58 balls with the help of seven sixes and in doing so became the highest run-scorer in the tournament for the time being.

His name would be on top of the list of few positives for Strikers in this tournament. After Sarthak’s departure, Arjun Rapria was given the baton and he did not disappoint scoring 47 off just 23 balls going at a strike rate of more than 200. For Tigers, Prince Yadav and Himmat Singh took two wickets each but there was little success to show for them as they were largely expensive for their liking.

In reply, Tigers never really looked in any discomfort chasing almost 10 an over from the start with contributions from Shivam Gupta who scored 31, Himmat Singh (34) and Dhruv Kaushik who made 41 but the one who stood out with his timely aggression was Lakshay Thareja. Though he was a late replacement for Tigers, he never really looked out of place.

He carried his bat through and what looked like a comfortable march towards the target suffered a few hiccups when stand-in captain Vaibhav Kandpal bowled a three-run 18th over, and a seven-run 19th over from Arjun Rapria left Tigers needing 11 from the last over.

Lakshay looked unfazed with his body language showing he had things under control. For Strikers Vaibhav Kandpal stood out as he gave away only 19 runs picking up 2 wickets.

The choice of Man of the Match had two main contenders in Sarthak Ranjan and Lakshay Thareja but the latter was adjudged deservingly.When asked later, whether it was a conscious effort to play the field and manouvre the ball in gaps or was it his batting style, Lakshay replied, “It is the way I play. I look for gaps as the field is spread out and try and rotate the strike as much as possible. It was nothing new for me as I have done this many times before as well but none at this kind of a big stage.”

All in all, it was a game befitting the last league match of an exciting tournament, which promises to be even more exciting with play-offs just round the corner.

Brief Scores

New Delhi Strikers 199/6 in 20 overs (Sarthak Ranjan 100, Arjun Rapria 47 not out, Prince Yadav 2/38, Himmat Singh 2/40) lose to New Delhi Tigers 200/4 in 20 overs (Lakshay Thareja 80 not out, Dhruv Kaushik 41, Himmat Singh 34, Vaibhav Kandpal 2/19, Prabhjot Singh 1/38)

Tags : Lakshay Thareja, Sarthak Ranjan, Prince Yadav, Harshit Rana, Himmat Singh, DPL 2025