TNPL 2025: 3 Reasons Why Tiruppur Collapsed Against Chepauk Super Gillies

It started with a furious blaze of boundaries. Tushar Raheja was on fire, batting as if Coimbatore was his backyard and the Chepauk bowling attack was merely a neighborhood net. A rollicking 79 off just 43 balls helped make the Tiruppur fans think that this was their night. Even while wickets tumbled around him, Raheja kept the chairs and set a platform that looked large enough to challenge any line-up. But what started like fireworks fizzled into a flat sparkler. Chepauk chased down 174 in just 16 overs, swatting the target away like a fly bothering their dinner. So, what went wrong for Tiruppur?

Middle-Order Meltdown After Raheja’s Blitz

First, let’s discuss the elephant in the dugout, which is the batting firepower after Raheja’s blitzkrieg. The opener dealt well, but the following batting partners didn’t bring the same firepower. Rajkumar, Paul, and Mohamed Ali all look like they were hitting with a soft toy instead of a bat. Instead of punching through, the middle-order plodded along.

From 117/2 in the 14th to 173/6 at the finish—Tiruppur managed 56 runs in the last 6 overs with 4 of their batting partners out. That isn’t finishing strong; it’s crawling over the finish line and tripping on the way there. When competing against a team like Chepauk, you need to score 190+ against them; a par score, to be padded with optimism, isn’t safe.

Baba Aparajith’s Command Performance

Then there was the real storm-match-winner, game-wrecker – Baba Aparajith. The captain produced an inning so outrageous that you may have questioned if the scoreboard was broken. 77 not out of 48 – unbelievably, unnecessarily, clean, fearless, and ferocious. After Mokit Hariharan’s explosive 46 off the top, Aparajith absorbed the pressure for the first half of his innings and then unleashed a punishing counterattack.

He danced down to any spinner, toyed with the pacers at will, and manipulated the field like it was a game of chess. Along with Vijay Shankar’s equally explosive 41* off 23, which came early in the innings, was an all-time second-wicket partnership that took the wind out of Tiruppur’s sails like a deflated soccer ball. After that, any hope of a return vanished completely. The match was over for Tiruppur quicker than you could say ‘field placement.’

Bowling That Couldn’t Hold a Line—Or the Nerve

Finally, and to be fair, Tiruppur’s bowling was as leaky as a busted pipe in the Chennai monsoon. Not one bowler managed to keep the run rate below 7.5. Silambarasan went for 13 an over, Mathivannan went for 10, Natarajan – yes, T. Natarajan – went for 13; the veteran seemed off his game and rusty beyond belief.

When you have wides, full tosses, and short balls just asking to be hit like begging a dog to bite them, you know you’re in trouble, and they were hit, straight into the stands. With an attack like this, 200 may have seemed like a speed bump for Chepauk. The fielding, while not horrible, definitely added to the sloppiness. There were no major drops; there were marginally 50/50 catches, but who was intense? No one. Ground fielding was sloppy, energy was flat.

They had the prologue and written the middle chapters, but they didn’t write the ending. Chepauk Super Gillies, under the steely brutality of Aparajith, took a thriller and turned it entirely into a one-horse show. For Tiruppur, I imagine the post-match huddle was less about what Chepauk did right and more along the lines of what they couldn’t do at all.

Disclaimer: This Exclusive News is based on the author’s understanding, analysis, and instinct. As you review this information, consider the points mentioned and form your own conclusions.

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