South Kanto Super Kings enjoy super Sunday in JPL Day 2

A prolific day with bat in hand from Josh Brown has helped power the South Kanto Super Kings to an early lead after day two of JPL XI.

The Super Kings claimed victories in both of their day two outings on Sano International Cricket Ground No.2, chasing down the Kansai Chargers in the morning, and holding the West Kanto Hurricanes to a 27-run victory in the afternoon.

After a false start on day one where rain denied other play, the Super Kings were quickest out of the blocks thanks to Brown, who backed the work of his teammates with the ball, keeping the Chargers to 135/9.

The everpresent Sabaorish Ravichandran (3/18) led the side with the ball, with Alester Kadowaki-Fleming (40) and Alex Shirai-Patmore (54) the only resistance in the Chargers’ efforts.

Brown took any chance of an upset off the table, belting 11 sixes and four fours in a 34-ball knock of 91, only falling with two runs needed for victory in the 13th over.

The Super Kings backed up their efforts in the afternoon, with Brown (40 off 16 balls) again in the runs, alongside Player of the Match Bhuvith Kulal, whose 52* (26) pushed the Super Kings to 173/9 from their 20 overs.

Hugo Tani-Kelly’s 41 (34) and Dimuth Karunaratne (31 from 21) provided a Hurricanes platform, though the end of their 68-run partnership sparked a collapse, with only Wataru Miyauchi (20) and Malinda Dissanayake (21*) providing further Hurricanes’ resistance. Kiefer Yamamoto-Lake finished with 4/35 after cleaning up the tail, and earlier removing brother Lachlan for 13.

It was a second defeat in the day for the Hurricanes, who earlier fell to East Kanto Sunrisers on SICG No.1.

The Sunrisers showed why they are again in the conversation as tournament favourites, chasing down a target of 131 inside 15 overs in a result to boost their net run rate.

Kendel Kadowaki-Fleming rotated his bowlers who maintained their rhythm throughout the innings, before the skipper (40 off 25 balls) and fellow opener Abhishek Anand (57 from 36 balls) combined in a 62-run partnership in just 6.4 overs to maintain the upper hand.

Jake Kusuda-Nairn (1/27 from four overs) and Malinda Dissanayake’s 2/21 (1.5) enjoyed success at the bowling crease, though the work from the opposition opening batters prevented any chance of the Hurricanes coming back into the contest.

After watching on in the morning with the bye, North Kanto Lions enjoyed an afternoon victory against the Kansai Chargers, with Abhipray Dewan finishing off the work of his teammates in a final-over chase of 175.

Dewan negotiated the final stages of the chase with a young tail, hitting the winning runs with three balls to spare and finishing 32 not out from 18 deliveries.

It backed a solid team effort with the bat, with the busy Mir Muhammad Ghufran top-scoring with 53 off 35 balls, Nikhil Pol making a quickfire 23 and captain Reo Sakurano Thomas finishing with a 24-ball 31.

Overseas player Patty Dooley added 20 from 21 balls in the chase, also taking 3/32 in the first innings. The left-arm spinner came back after being hit for 19 runs off his first over against fellow pro Jack Wildermuth (63 off 34 balls), though came back to dismiss the opener as well as Alester Kadowaki Fleming (28) and Supun Navarathna (3).

With the reserve day now to be used on May 5 for the Final and the third-place play-off, the afternoon slate on day three will be matches 1 and 2 of the tournament that were postponed.

Matches three and four, which were washed out on day one of the competition, have been deemed no-results with teams taking a point each.