Sankalpan knocked out of AT20 after big defeat in super 8s
Sankalpan team were knocked out of AT20 after failing to defend 115 against EDIFICE. Earlier, Sankalpan entered super 8s after registering 2 wins in group stage. They were placed in group D in initial stage of this tournament. Sankalpan won 2 out of 3 matches in group stage and entered into super 8s. In very first match of tournament they suffered a defeat against team Dynamites.
However, they recovered well and won next 2 games against MQA and Avengers. “After a loss in first match it was a do or die situation for us. Because yet another loss would have resulted in our elimination from tournament. Against MQA we were bowled out for 118 but we managed to bowl them out for 96. Whereas against Avengers our batting hit the new low and we were bowled out for 94 but our strong bowling line up defended this total as we won by 12 runs,” said Samrat Nakhva who was a key player for Sankalpan during their campaign of this year’s AT20.
Reaching into super 8s meant that the competition was much stronger and margin for error was pretty small as each team played only couple of matches in it. They won their first match against DSP by 17 runs. This time the batsman rose to the occasion as they scored 149 in 20 overs. Having defended two small totals, their bowlers were confident enough to repeat the same again. Eventually DSP was bowled out for 132. Sankalpan were looking all set to make it to semi final before they faced EDIFICE in their final clash of super 8s.
“We were confident about making it to semi final and then the final. But we just couldn’t prevent EDIFICE batsman and especially their opener. (Mahesh Hirpara). We scored 115 in that match and having a good experience of defending totals, we had high hopes from our bowling line up. But we just couldn’t keep their batsmen quiet and they snatched the game from us,” said Samrat Nakhva who was the lone warrior for Sankalpan in that match scoring 66 and taking 2 wickets in that match.
Ironically, Sankalpan had won all of their matches when they batted first and defended the total. A big defeat meant that they had to end their journey in Architect T20 tournament. Sankalpan’s opening bowler Nilesh Pophale went for 22 runs in first over of match. He did really well in all the previous matches but failed to deliver at key moment.
Though Sankalpan couldn’t win a title, they have some positives in form of some players like Samrat Nakhva, Nilesh Pophale and Amol Humane whose performance was extremely well in this tournament. It will be fair to say that Sankalpan will surely return harder and stronger during next year’s Architect T20 tournament.