Tajinder Singh anchors nightcap win over South Shore Royals

Two games in one day at Parc Sorbonne, and the second was the tighter of the pair. Brossard won the toss again and batted first, but the top order did not have much of an answer for South Shore's opening bowlers: Amit Kumar fell for 9, Rohit Sharma for 1, and Hemanth for 8, leaving the innings three down for 29 before Tajinder Singh came to the crease.

Tajinder built the total more or less on his own from there, working to 21 off 20 balls with two fours before he retired hurt, the top score of the innings by some distance. Around him things stayed scratchy, wickets falling for Amit Malhotra and Tarun Reddy in quick succession, but the last pair gave the total some shape: Sukhjit Singh hit 16 off just 7 balls, including a four and a six, and put on 22 for the seventh wicket with Haroon Syed, who chipped in 9 not out off 4 balls with two boundaries of his own. Brossard closed on 71 for 5.

South Shore's chase never quite got away from them. S Patil top scored with 19 off 18, and Saurabh Bedi added 16, but the required rate kept climbing against tight bowling from Tajinder (1 for 14 off three overs) and a single over from Sukhjit Singh that went for just 4 and picked up a wicket. Edukondalu Muchumuri was unbeaten on 10 at the end, but South Shore closed on 60 for 4, 11 runs short. A deserved man of the match award for Tajinder Singh, who did the bulk of the scoring and then came back to help shut the game down with the ball.