Folded for 102, and the Royals cruise home by 87

South Shore Royals won the toss, chose to bat, and made the most of it at Parc Sorbonne. S Patil top scored with 71 off 52 balls, five fours and four sixes, and put on 60 with Vinay Kumar for the sixth wicket, the biggest stand of the innings. Edukondalu Muchumuri finished unbeaten on 21 off 16 with four boundaries, and Aman Joshi added 27 off 27 down the order, taking South Shore to 189/9 off their 30 overs. On our side, Harry Sukhdeo was the pick of the bowlers with 1/14 from four overs including a maiden, and Raja Sukhdeo took two wickets, though it cost him 38 runs from his four.

Chasing 190, Rohit Sharma was the only Warrior to really get after it, making 25 off 19 with two fours and two sixes before he was caught. He and Ved Vyas put together 28 for the sixth wicket, comfortably our best partnership of the innings, which tells you most of what you need to know about how the rest went. Harry Sukhdeo made 16 off 36 at the other end, useful but never quick enough to keep the required rate honest. Amit Malhotra faced two balls and got neither of them away, out for a duck. Aman Joshi did the real damage with the ball too, taking 4/25 in 4.1 overs, backed up by two wickets apiece for Tapabrata and Edukondalu Muchumuri.

The innings folded for 102 in 22.1 overs, well short of the target, with the last two wickets adding just a single run between them. It was a complete match for Aman Joshi, who top-scored for South Shore's lower order and then ran through ours, and the man of the match award was never really in doubt. A defeat by 87 runs is a heavy one by any measure, and there is not much to dress it up as. The scorecard reads as it should.