CCL 2023 final: It’s the Bhojpuri Dabanggs vs the Telugu Warriors

Going into the Celebrity Cricket League 2023 semi-finals on Friday, both the top teams – Karnataka Bulldozers and Bhojpuri Dabanngs - were expected to play each other in today’s final. Both had unbeaten track records in getting to the league of 4 and while one was literally made to sweat before getting that coveted spot in the finale, the other had to gracefully bow out.

The first semi-final of the 2023 CCL was between the Dabanggs and the Mumbai Heroes, a match that literally went down to the wire and could have gone either way. The Heroes tightened the noose around the Dabanggs at several stages during the T20 Test format game, but the later scraped through literally by a whisker.

In the second match, although the Telugu Warriors had the home crowd advantage, their route to the semi-final had not been smooth. They played four and lost two, making it to this stage of the tournament on the basis of a better net run rate, after tying with the Chennai Rhinos in terms of points. Akhil Akkineni and his boys came in as the underdogs, determined to make this match count. The Bulldozers tried hard to keep the Warriors at bay, but eventually, they just didn’t have enough juice in them to put up a defendable target.

The final match of the season will be played on March 25 in Vishakapatnam at 7 pm. It was earlier scheduled to take place over the weekend of March 18 and 19 in Hyderabad, where the finals of all earlier seasons played out, considering it is the home ground of the CCL promoters, but despite the long relationship with the authorities there, the organizers were unable to get the requisite permissions to conduct matches.

You can catch all the action of the CCL finale on Zee Network’s TV channels. You can stream it on Zee5 or on the official YouTube page of CCL.