Match 1: Kopavogur Puffins (100/2 in 16.0 overs, Jakob Robertson 29*, Hari Singh 26*, Sadun Lankathilaka 1-18, W Mahagoda 1-27) beat Reykjavik Vikings (96/8 in 20 overs, Lakshitha Bimsara 29, Prabhat Weerasooryia 18, Keenan Botha 3-13, S Padamata 2-14) by 8 wickets
SportZchain Man of the Match: Keenan Botha
Although the weather was mush milder last Sunday, the batting still proved to be tough in the morning. However, this time Kopavogur Puffins were the bowling side and Reykjavik Vikings were at the receiving end. After an accurate first over from Rehman, Botha came into the attack and dismissed Derick Deonarain on the very second ball, thanks to a fantastic diving effort from David Cook. Vikings couldn’t recover from the early damage and lost 3 more wickets in next 4 overs, ending at 29-4 after the powerplay overs. Then Bimsara and Weerasooryia steadied the innings for some time. Bimsara was the more aggressive one and hit 5 boundaries in his almost run a ball innings of 29, while Weerasooryia was more dependent on ones and twos. The duo added 32 runs in 6 overs, before S Padamata first dismissed Weerasooryia for 18 in 12th over and Bimasara in 14th. While Lankathilaka played well in the last 5 overs, Vikings kept losing wickets at regular intervals and ended up with a sub-per score of 97/8.
M Kareem opened the Puffins innings with Botha and started well, hitting three boundaries in first two overs. Although Lankathilaka dismissed Botha early for 4, Robertson joined Kareem to take Puffins forward. Vikings had a breakthrough on the last ball of the 7th over, getting Kareem out for 21 and was hoping to put pressure on not-so-confident batting line-up of Puffins. However, Hari Singh and Robertson had other ideas. Playing only his second game outside in Iceland, Singh showed excellent maturity and started slowly, knowing that Puffins can easily win if they bat for 20 overs. And there was no looking back. Robertson and Singh got confident as the game moved on and added unbeaten 60 runs to complete the chase in quick time, hitting 4 fours in the 16th over.
Botha was adjudged the SportZchain Man of the Match for his excellent opening spell.
Match 2: Hafnarfjordur Hammers (139/10, Chamley Fernando 46, K Muhammad 26, Kathir Narayanan 5-21, Saravanan Shanmugam 3-19) beat Vesturbær Volcanos (117/8, Avik Ghosh 28, Sreejith Jayabhavan 15*, Tajder Khan 3-19, Sulaman Nawaz 2-30) by 22 runs
SportZchain Man of the Match: Kathir Narayanan
In contrast to all the matches so far, Hammers started their innings very well, thanks to excellent batting from Chamley Fernando. Although Ram Gujappan and Sampath Nagarajan tried hard to minimize the number of bad balls and were able to keep Fernando´s opening partner M Younas at bay, Fernando was able to convert good balls into bad ones quite easily with his superb footwork. Things went even worse for Volcanos once Dushan Bandara joined Fernando and the duo started hitting boundaries at will. They added 39 runs in 3 overs with four 6´s and three 4´s, before Vaibhab Anandgoankar was able to deceive Bandara for 18, with a brilliant slower ball and S Shanmugam got the priced wicket of Fernando in the 10th over. For the last 10 overs of the Hammers innings, Volcanos bowled well, while Hammers tried to hit as much boundaries as possible. Kathir Narayanan and Shanmugam kept on taking wickets at regular intervals despite few missed chances and Hammers ended up with 139, thanks to big hitting efforts down the order from Muhammad and Tajder Khan.
Sulaman Nawaz sent down an excellent first over for Hammers, getting the wicket of Mohith Kotian and almost having Avik Ghosh LBW as a close call did not go his way. The hero of the last match, Lee Nelson, was out in the next over from Tajder Khan and Volcanos were in trouble at 5/2 after 2 overs. In absence of Sebastiaan Dreyer, Volcanos batting line-up was quite weak and it even got worse as Kathir Narayanan was not available to bat. Avik Ghosh provided some hopes, with some big sixes and fours, during his effort of 28. However, an excellent slower ball from Dushan Bandara ended his resistance in the 9th over and Volcanos could not recover from there. Although they were able to keep up the run rate for the first 10 overs, it became difficult with wickets falling at regular intervals. Towards the end, Sreejith Jayabhavan and Anandgoankar had a last try with some clean hitting, but the asking rate was too high to catch up against the likes of Bandara and Khan. Volcanos ended their innings at 117/8 in 20 overs, 23 runs short of the target.
Kathir Narayanan was adjudged as the SportZchain Man of the Match for his 5 wickets haul, only the second one for a fast bowler in Iceland.
Standings as of Week 2
Fixtures list : https://www.krikket.is/matches
Live Telecast : https://www.youtube.com/c/IcelandCricket
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