Pallekele,
two one-sided encounters were witnessed in the Legends Cricket Trophy (LCT) at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium. New York Superstar Strikers locked horns with Punjab Royals in the first game whereas Rajasthan Kings crossed swords with Colombo Lions in the second encounter.
New York Superstar Strikers have been literally flying in the ongoing LCT 2024. They are the only team with a complete winning record as they registered their third victory of the season. Rightly so, they are comfortably sitting on top of the points table.
Earlier, they got the better of Dubai Giants in the tournament opener before they defeated Delhi Devils in the second game. Coming to their third game, they comfortably outwitted Punjab Royals by 54 runs.
Chadwick Walton was the pick of the batters for New York Superstar Strikers as he pitched in with a quickfire 73 off 33 balls. He constructed his innings with the help of 8 fours and 5 hits over the fence at a healthy strike rate of 221.21.
In the end, the table-toppers managed to post a humongous total of 175 for the loss of five wickets in 90 balls. On the contrary, Rahat Ali conceded 59 runs for Punjab Royals in his quota of 24 balls but managed to pick up three wickets to his name.
In response to the humongous target, Punjab Royals missed the plot in the run-chase as they were able to muster only 121 for the loss of 8 wickets in 90 balls.
Coming to the second match of the day, Rajasthan Kings picked up an easy win over Colombo Lions as they aced the run-chase by scoring runs at a rate of knots. They won the game by 8 wickets and notched up their second win of this season.
With this win, they go second on the points table. Batting first, the Colombo Lions were able to garner just a mediocre total of 101/8 in 90 balls. Despite having big guns on their side like Chris Gayle and Jesse Ryder, they failed to add flesh to the team’s scoreboard.
On the other hand, Rajasthan Kings chased down the target without any fuss as they got the job done with 41 balls to spare.
Skipper Robin Uthappa provided an electrifying start to the game as he scored 55 off 22 balls. The right-handed batter used all his experience to better effect by smashing a flurry of 10 fours and 2 sixes.
Brief Scores
Match 8:
New York Superstar Strikers – 175/5 (90 balls) – Chadwick Walton – 73 (33); Asela Gunaratne – 3/22
Punjab Royals – 121/8 (90 balls) – Tillakaratne Dilshan 31 (14); Rahat Ali – 3/59
Match 9:
Colombo Lions – 101/8 (90 balls) – Chris Gayle – 26 (17); Yasir Shah – 2/26
Rajasthan Kings – 105/2 (49 balls) – Robin Uthappa – 55 (22); Saxena – 2/19
