Season summary - Infernos continue to be ruthless

A season that started with so much promise ended on a whimper. Infernos continued to set the tone for the season after an initial burst of competitiveness shown by the Vikings. 

 The first few weekends of the current season made everyone think that the tide was going to turn in favour of the Vikings but as the games went on, the Vikings continued to falter and the Infernos continued to stay steadfast.

Team summary for the Vikings: 

Satya took over the captaincy for the season and with core of the team remaining intact, the goals were very clear for everyone. After a few initial experiments everyone was assigned a role and the expectations from them. 

On paper, the Vikings have a strong batting order but the same old issues continued to plague the team. Very little strike rotation, too many dot balls and a high percentage of glory shots. This meant that most of the scoring pressure fell on the redoubtable Hari who had a season to remember. He was clearly the best batter on display across both teams but cricket is a team sport and he needed some support from the other end. 

Kings played a couple of eye catching knocks, Chaitanya looked like a dream in almost all his innings and Harsha came into his own during the latter part of the series. Sameer, Gopi, Arjun and Satya were almost absent from the batting order, not applying themselves enough to make a decent contribution. 

Dhruv continued to get better and better and has now become a go to player that any team will want. His batting and bowling are full of cricketing smarts. 

Bipin was explosive in pockets and when he got going was difficult to contain. 

Kishore finally unravelled the best version of himself and the moniker BUTCHER fits him perfectly. Always asked to come at the most challenging parts of the innings, he showed what raw power and calmness can bring. 

The bowling was good in pockets but what hurt the Vikings the most was losing control in key parts of the Infernos batting. By focusing too much on HK and Samir, the bowlers seemed to lose the plot when the other Infernos batters started getting going. Sameer was the clear pick of the bowlers bowling with pace

Piyush was a revelation with his bowling. His magic balls were unplayable but he needs to work on his consistency. 

For this excellent wicket keeping, game awareness and batting par excellence, Hari was voted as the MVP for the Vikings !!!

Team Summary for the Infernos:

The Infernos have now basically made winning a habit and this season was no different. In Shiten, they have a supremely confident leader who seems to get the best out of everyone. 

On the face of it, the appearance was that HK and Samir were doing all the damage and there is truth in that. However if you look across the season, they had numerous match winners step up and that became a clear differentiator as the season progressed. 

AK's fielding and initial bursts with the bat, CP letting his willow talk by cutting out the external noise, the boys Pranav and Ayush showing they belong here with the smartest wicket taking bowling going around and the all round skills of Vikram, Susmit and Vicky ensured there was no let up. 

Manoj, Raghu and KG even in their brief appearances made solid match winning impact and all that told a story by itself. 

Samir was simply outstanding, a lesson for everyone playing cricket at the maidaan. How he soaks pressure and goes about his innings is something everyone can aspire to do. 

HK was as always being HK. Most often his fight was with himself and this season it was no different. If he did not score, his bowling became doubly menacing and vice versa. 

Shiten bowled outstanding spells all season long and was brave even if he got hit. 

Vicky and Susmit towards the end showed why the Infernos are such an all round team and everyone must be feared in their line up. 

It was a wicketkeepers season for sure with Samir being voted as the MVP for the Infernos for his astute batting and solid wicketkeeping apart from being the back room brain for the Infernos. 

Overall, another hard fought season. The score line makes it look one sided but it was anything but. 

Bring on SEASON 9!!! PCL, where heroes become super heroes.