Madras Cricket Club beat Golden Hawks to lift DDCA Hot Weather title

New Delhi: Keshav Dalal, also known as Keshav R Singh, is turning out to be MS Dhoni of Delhi cricket in terms of captaincy. The 24-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman secured the fourth title of the summer season by leading Madras Cricket Club to the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) Hot Weather title at the St. Stephen's Cricket Ground at Mori Gate on Friday evening.

The pitch at the venue is used far too many times by this period of the season every year, leading to significant help for the spinners. This was, otherwise earlier in the season, a belter even with the searing sun baking it.

The semifinal match, where Madras Cricket Club did well to beat Indian Air Force by 32 runs despite putting up only 292 batting first, was a lesson. This time they didn't want to leave anything to chance.

Sarthak Ranjan, having spent years in Delhi cricket circuit, brought out his experience to build a century (104 off 77 balls, 8x4s, 7x6s), adding 125 for the second wicket with Vaibhav Kandpal (41 off 46 balls, 2x4s, 1x6).

The victorious Madras Cricket Club after winning the DDCA Hot Weather 

"I gain extra motivation and get pumped up during the knockouts. I had planned prior to the start of the final that if we get to bat first, I will try to finish the match there and then," said Sarthak Ranjan.

"Usually at this ground, the match goes on till the end, but my target was to shoulder the responsibility and finish it in the first innings itself. I had thought we will score 400-plus but I was dismissed a bit earlier than I should have."

The pitch was sticky. Also the bowling side didn't bowl as well. The spinners, in the words of Golden Hawks coach Kuldeep Rawat, were way off target.

While Ranjan laid the base, it was Anmol Sharma (87 off 42 balls, 7x4s, 5x6s), who propelled the team to the eventual 361/6 in 40 overs.

"Normally, on this kind of a surface, you score heavily in powerplay and then go at a sedate pace because the red ball doesn't provide enough runs later. But credit to Anmol for playing such an outstanding innings."

Anmol Sharma had walked into bat after the dismissal of Sarthak Ranjan and an over later Vaibhav Kandpal was also dismissed. That left him with another new man at the crease.

Sarthak Ranjan scored a century in the final

"The message from outside was that I had to carry forward and build a partnership. I just wanted to carry the momentum and open my shoulders towards the end," said Sharma.

Open his shoulders, he did. Pawan Negi also chipped in with 44 off 18 balls (5x4s, 3x6s).

Anmol again had come into service. After a blinder of an innings, he came up with a blinder of a catch.

Golden Hawks also got off to a flying start. Young Pranav Pant made 31 off 13 balls (3x4s, 3x6s) and Dhananjai Singh hit 54 off 31 balls (7x4s, 3x6s). These starts are fine if you are chasing anything around 300. But with 362-run target you needed a bigger individual score. They got stuck up against Vaibhav Kandpal, who got them both with his off-spin and returned with figures of 3/66 in eight overs.

Sarthak Ranjan (left) and Anmol Sharma

It was then left to the elegant left-hander Ankit Rajesh Kumar to take charge. He lost Ishan Chopra when the score was 146 but was on way to building a partnership with Raman Rangi before an athletic Anmol plucked the ball out of thin air to send the batsman back. Ankit (55 off 42 balls, 3x4s, 6x6s) had played a cracking cover drive but Anmol rose and blocked the ball, scalping it.

The innings lost track and Golden Hawks folded for 234 in 30.2 overs.

Besides Kandpal's three, left-arm spinner Yashjeet Balhara took 3/34, off-spinner Naman Tiwari and the 17-year-old batting all-rounder Prikshit picked 1/7 in one over of his left-arm spin.

The victory left skipper Keshav R Singh (Keshav Dalal) thrilled.

Vaibhav Kandpal was the Player of the Match for his all-round show

"We have played great cricket throughout the season. We have played good cricket for the last 3-4 years. But unfortunately, we were not sealing victories. We were either losing in the final or semifinal. So ahead of the season, we all thought that we will win as much as we can. We were playing great cricket anyway. We wanted to better ourselves in knockouts. But we weren't winning finals," said skipper Keshav, under whose captaincy Madras Cricket Club emerged as the most successful team in this Hot Weather season.

The wicketkeeper-batsman was brought in as skipper at the start of the summer season.

"This season was my debut as skipper. The fact is that when you have seniors like Pawan Negi, Sarthak Ranjan and Vaibhav Kandpal -- whenever I was in doubt, these seniors would chip in. Our juniors like Prikshit and Rehan Singh also contributed well," added Keshav.

Toss ahead of the start of the DDCA Hot Weather Final

He captained the team to titles at the Sahibzada Ajit Singh Tournament and Sahibzada Zorawar Singh and Sahibzada Fateh Singh T20 Cricket Tournament. The team under him then ended as runners-up in the Goswami Ganesh Dutt 40-over Cricket Tournament and followed it with a semifinal showing at the Lala Raghubir Singh Memorial 40-overs Cricket. Madras also ended as champions of their Premier 1 Division pool in the DDCA T20 League and ended in second place in the DDCA 40-overs league. The win on Friday, however, was the icing on the cake as they also took the cream of the titles.

Tags : Sarthak Ranjan, Vaibhav Kandpal, DDCA, Hot Weather, Anmol Sharma, Madras Cricket Club, Pranav Pant, Delhi, cricket