#NSL360: Varun Nayanar shines in front and behind the wickets for GEMS Modern Academy U13s

Ajit Vijaykumar 10:42 02/11/2014
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  • Attentive students: Action from the National School League at the The Seven Stadiums in Dubai yesterday.

    GEMS Modern Academy Under-13s had a brilliant outing in their Sport360° National School League against The Millennium School Dubai as they registered a massive 90-run win in the 15-over encounter yesterday afternoon.

    For GEMS, Swabhanu Khosla was the standout performer with the bat as he hit a cracking 65 from 44 deliveries, which included seven hits across the ropes.

    He got excellent support from wicketkeeper-batsman Varun Nayanar who scored 26 runs from 21 deliveries.

    They got off to a shaky start with opener Shivam Ghosh getting run out in the third over.

    But from there on, Swabhanu and Varun took over.

    Swabhanu made good use of his reach to score boundaries at will. Millennium had to use as many as nine bowlers to break his rhythm, but the opener was in great flow and added 81 runs for the second wicket with Nayanar.

    Even though they didn’t hit a single boundary in the last three overs, GEMS had enough in the tank to reach a commanding total of 135 for three. They were also helped by 29 extras delivered by the Millennium bowlers.

    In reply, TMS suffered an early setback with Rudra Mahadev getting opener Macneil Noronha out caught and bowled for five. And when one down batsman Siddharth Tiwary got run out, their innings suffered a big jolt.

     It was then the turn of Varun Ravi to turn up the heat as he came up with a brilliant display. He ran through the TMS side with exceptional bowling figures of 2.4-2-1-4 as he had three players bowled and one stumped.

    Millennium’s innings folded up for 45 in 12.4 overs and that gave GEMS a morale boosting 90-run win. Ronak Panoli was the other successful bowler for GEMS as he ended up with figures of 2-5 from two overs.

    For his all round effort of 26 runs and commendable work behind the wickets, that included two stumpings, Nayanar was declared the player of the match.

    It was a tough outing for both sides as strong winds made for challenging conditions, with the sun also not showing much mercy. But the players defied the weather to play out a full contest.

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