CCL 2024: Bengal Tigers are the champs; get the better of the Karnataka Bulldozers finally

An undefeated track record was no reason for the Karnataka Bulldozers to take the Bengal Tigers lightly. Although the Bulldozers had beaten the Tigers twice already in the tournament, and in all their previous encounters, the performance and hard-fought wins the latter secured against other teams, including the Mumbai Heroes in the second qualifier, should have alerted them to how dangerous Jisshu Senguptha’s boys can be.

Choosing to bat first after winning the toss, the Tigers lost a few early wickets, but with Jammy Banerjee and Rahul Mazumdar around, there was no reason for worry. In a partnership of 50 runs of only 16 balls, the duo, both of who are the top scorers for the Tigers, took the team to 118 for the loss of 4 in the first set of 10 overs. Jammy once again top scored with 57.

Three-figure targets are, normally, no big deal for the Bulldozers, but it can get tough when you’ve lost some of your most attacking batsmen, Darling Krishna (0), Chandan (10) and Rajeev Hanu (0) during powerplay. And with the Tigers unleashing some great bowling that made it difficult for the Bulldozers to find the boundary, the latter crawled to a total score of 86 only for the loss of 7 weeks, trailing by a whopping 32 runs.

This was the day when the Bulldozers just could not get anything right with the ball, which, the Tigers took advantage of and how, putting away every delivery all across the field. But for Chandan, every bowler on the Bulldozers team proved to be very expensive, which helped the Tigers along to a final total of 105 for 4, of which 39 came from Jammy. The actor-filmmaker, it seems, just does not fail with the bat, doing a lot of the heavy-lifting for his team in every match.

If the Bulldozers’ first innings was anything to go, a final chasing target of 140 seemed like an impossible mission. But Karan Aryan, who opened the innings with J Karthik, didn’t think so. He helped the team to a good start of 46 runs in 3 overs, until Ananda, who took 3 wickets in the first innings, struck first blood and got rid of Karan. The Bulldozers lost a couple more wickets, but then Rajeev came to the crease and began to turn things around in the 6th over.

Ananda, who has been one of the most successful bowlers of the Bengal Tigers, took quite a beating with 30 runs coming of the 6thover, most of which were part of Rajeev’s 8 ball 25 run knock. Rahul came in the next over and got rid of Rajeev, but by then, he’d got the team to a much better position with a fighting chance. But then Rahul sent Rajeev’s replacement Pradeep also packing for only 1 run.

And just when it seemed that the Bulldozers could just steal this from the tigers, Rahul came up with a brilliant 9th over giving away very few runs. It helped that Darling Krishna just hasn’t had a good run with the bat. Jammy Banerjee, who was entrusted with the responsibility of closing out the innings, also didn’t let Krishna change his bad streak in Thiruvananthapuram, giving the Tigers a resounding victory – their first against the Bulldozers – in this final of the Celebrity Cricket League Season 10.