CHICAGO UNITED WINS PEPSI BASH 2017

  • September 9, 2017

CHICAGO UNITED WINS PEPSI BASH 2017
By Sumukha Prasanna

Being undefeated in a competition is an uphill task for any team. Chicago United and Incredibles – both undefeated teams, reached the finals of BPL’s Pepsi Bash T20 (Day / night). Both the teams demonstrated enthusiasm and arrived well ahead of time for the toss. The toss coin was the original coin used for Pakistan vs India finals of the Champions Trophy 2017. Live video broadcast, commentary, food etc added to the excitement of the grand finale.

The toss spun in favor of Incredibles and defending champions, Chicago United (CU) were commissioned to field during day light. The ‘Men in Red’ of Chicago United quickly took the field as speedster Ahmed Askari opened the bowling picking up two wickets in his very 1st over. Incredibles lost wickets at regular intervals. Former U-19 India and India ‘A’ player Niraj Patel (4-1-19-0) and CU skipper Sami Khan (4-0-21-3) along with Ahmed Askari (4-0-24-4) continued to trouble the batsmen. Shayan Ali (37 runs) played a responsible knock to post 112 runs (all out) on the board.

Going into bat under the nighty moon and lights, CU batsmen found this target high achievable until they lost their openers Yaseen and Sami in the 1st balls of the innings. Qasim Khan and Moin bowled ‘on-spot’ challenging the CU batsmen by limiting them to 45/5 in the 8th over. Former USA wicket keeper Ashar, former U-19 USA captain Abhijit Joshi and a former Ranji player – stabilized the CU innings and achieved the Championship target of 112 runs in 17 overs with three wickets to spare.

Defending champs, Chicago United won the BPL’s Pepsi Bash 2017 for the second consecutive time. It was an interesting low scoring game that was dominated by the bowlers.

The match was followed by an awards ceremony. A huge and heavy metal Champions trophy and runners up trophy were presented to the winners and runners-up. The following individual awards were also presented:
Pepsi Bash MVP: Sami Khan (Chicago United)
Most Economical Bowler: Ahmed Askari (Chicago United)
Batsmen with most 6’s: Shaheer Hassan (Incredibles)
BPL’s MVP: Sami Khan (Chicago United)
This was transitioned smoothly to a moonlight dinner hosted by the BPL to mark the end of a very well hosted cricket event.