Our very own festival – The Community Premier League concluded on 17th October 2020. Mavericks, Rangers, Chargers, Dynamos & Jaguars were the 5 participating teams with Mavericks & Chargers seeing a change in leadership from the previous Edition as Ravi Teja lead the Mavericks and Aman our Fit On Click Cricket Committee ambassador took charge of the Chargers.
The auctions saw a lot of changes except for the Rangers who retained their core players but all the other teams underwent complete makeovers, Chargers captain Aman made sure they had an edge over the other teams before a ball was yet to be bowled as he came into the auctions with a solid plan & executed well to assemble one of the strongest teams of the tournament who would eventually go on to win the League.
Thursday night was the BIG night as we witnessed some great action on opening day. The most notable performance of the day would come from Mavericks as Ravi Teja & Janaki smashed it all around Dulsco scoring 87 runs, the highest total of the Tournament. Day number 2 started with a bang as well as our eventual finalist Mavericks and Chargers locked horns in the first match with the Chargers winning by just 5 runs, this would set the tone for the rest of the day as we witnessed some great games as the teams fought tooth and nail for the top 2 spots. Match number 8, Dynamos vs Jaguars would turn out to be one of the most memorable games of CPL, Edition 2 as the Dynamos collapsed for a miserly total of 17 against the Jaguars but fought valiantly to take the game right till the last over & last wicket just falling short of a historic win.
The knock-out stages:
After a long day of cricket on day number 2, we would finally have our top 4 – Chargers, Mavericks, Dynamos & Jaguars all qualifying for the KO stages in the respective order. In the eliminator 1, we had defending champions Jaguars knock Dynamos out of the tournament despite being the favorites of this edition. The stage was all set for closing day Mavs playing Chargers in Qualifier 1, Chargers would win the toss and decide to bowl first. Mavs only managed a total of 36 but showed great character to win by 13 runs and become the first team to qualify for the CPL final. A disheartened Chargers team would pick themselves up as they knocked out defending champions Jaguars in eliminator 2 to set up a date with the Mavericks once again for the BIG final.
The final started out with the Chargers winning the toss and electing to bat first this time. They had a clear strategy to put runs on the board & bowl tight to defend. A quickfire 17 from 7 balls from Aamer would get them off to a great start, Mavericks did well towards the end to pull the game back & restrict the total to 46. Some great batting by Sunil P & skipper Ravi Teja got the Mavs off to a flyer but after a couple of great catches and freak run-outs put Chargers in the driver’s seat, captain Ravi Teja fought right till the end but it was not enough as last edition’s finalist would go one step further to be crowned champions of the coveted Community Premier League, Edition 2!
Chargers opener Mohammed Uzair was awarded the best batsman as he scored 87 runs through-out the tournament which included a memorable 47 not out. Jai, playing his first CPL picked up the best bowler award as he picked up 7 crucial wickets with an average of 6.5 & an economy rate of just 6 per over. With some great overall performances with the bat & ball Mavericks captain, Ravi Teja was Player of The Tournament scoring 80 runs & picking up 5 wickets guiding his team to the Runners-up trophy.