The annual T10 cricket tournament, also known as SportZchain Sixty Ball Shootout, will commence on 26th Jun at the Víðistaðatún , Hafnarfjordur. The tournament will span over four Sundays (26th June 3rd July, 10th July and 24th July), three matches each of these days, all the four clubs playing each other twice.
Going by the performance during the Sportzchain Islensk Premier League, Hafnarfjordur Hammers and Vesturbær Volacones are the two in-form teams. Hammers have a very strong batting line-up, aided by big hitting power of Chamley Fernando, Dushan Bandara and Tajder Khan. Their ability of hitting boundaries from the word go will be very handy during the T10 matches. They have a formidable bowling line-up with Dushan Bandara, Sulaman Nawaz, Tajder Khan and Javed Miakhial, although lack of a quality spinner may turn out to be vital. On the other hand, Volcanoes have the best bowling line up among the four teams. Their experienced strike bowlers, Kathir Narayanan, Sampath Nagarajan and Ram Gujappan were exceptional throughout the T20 league and the likes of Saravanan Shanmugam, Kuldeep Jha, Sreejith Jayabhaban, Mohit Kotian have chipped in at the crucial junctures. And this year, with all these impressive fast bowlers, they have Vaibhab Anandgaonkar, currently the highest wicket-taker this season, with 19 wickets at 7.8 strike rate. While Volcanos have performed better with the bat this season, they are still heavily dependent on Lee Nelson, Sebastiaan Dreyer and Avik Ghosh, and failed to score more than 7 runs a over during the T20 matches. They have to find out a way to score more than 90 to win T10 games, especially against the strong Hammers side.
The champion and runner up of the indoor Volcanic Ashes tournament, Kopavogur Puffins and Reykjavik Vikings, could not perform as expected during the SportZchain Islensk Premier League. Puffins played well in patches during the T20 League but failed to click at the critical points. Keenan Botha, M Kareem, Hari Singh, Jackob Robertson, Bala Kamallakharan showed very good composure with the bat, while Botha, David Cook, Sai Padamata were excellent with the ball. They also have to figure a way out to score runs faster during the sixty-ball shootout and hang on to all the catches, especially the match-deciding ones. Vikings were completely out of touch during the T20 league and ended up losing all the six matches. However, they played only one match with their full-strength team as Lakmal Bandara and Derick Deonarain were not available during most of the tournament. Vikings were champions last year and with a strong batting line-up consisting of Derick Deonarain, Lakmal Bandara, Lakshitha Bimsara, Ravi Rawat and a versatile bowling attack with Bandara, Sadun Lankathilaka, Prabhat Weerasooriya and W Mahagoda, they are capable of defending the title.
The live telecast of all the matches will be available on the ICA YouTube channel
Live Telecast : https://www.youtube.com/c/IcelandCricket Fixtures list : https://www.krikket.is/matches
