By Sheriff Michaels
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| Highveld Lions defeated two IPL sides: Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings |
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (TheSportsNEXT) October 16, 2012: Highveld Lions won their second straight match at the Champions League Twenty20 2012 at Newlands in Cape Town on Tuesday, this time beating Chennai Super Kings by six wickets.
The match took several twists right throughout where Chennai Super Kings looked struggling to score 130 runs at one stage but ending up with a total of 159 runs and then restricted Highveld Lions to 33 runs after eight overs but they eventually managed to keep up with the asking run-rate over 10 runs an over to clinch an unbelievable victory.
Highveld Lions skipper Alvio Petersen won the toss and showed no hesitation in sending Chennai Super Kings into bat as he was well aware of their batting strength and abilities of his strong middle order batsmen.
Chennai Super Kings had six batsmen scoring above 20 runs but none of them went on to play that big innings as skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (34 from 26 – 2 fours, 2 sixes) was the only man to score in the 30s.
Faf du Plessis (25 from 20 – 2 fours, 1 six) and Murali Vijay (22 from 26 – 2 fours, 1 six) opened the batting for the Chennai Super Kings and the duo took the total to 44 when Morris got rid of du Plessis on fourth delivery of the sixth over.
Suresh Raina (20 from 16 – 2 fours, 1 six) was promoted up the order at number three position and he along with Vijay took the score to 69 before losing his wicket on final delivery of the 10th over.
Chennai Super Kings needed to win this match and had to score in excess of 160 runs to make it difficult for the Highveld Lions and at halfway stage of their innings they were looking like scoring somewhere around 130-140 runs.
However, Mahendra Singh Dhoni made a smart move by promoting himself up at number four position and it gave him enough time to get his eyes in and he got his feet to move perfectly well in the dying stages of the match where Ravindra Jadeja (21 from 16 = 2 fours, 1 six) and Subramaniam Badrinath (27 from 14 – 2 sixes) played handy knocks to clinch 89 runs from the final 10 overs.
In the end, Chennai Super Kings scored fighting total of 158 for six wickets from their 20 overs. It was a total where one could expect Chennai bowlers to restrict any opposition with some surprise package spinners in the attack.
Pakistan’s left-arm pacer Sohail Tanvir once again proved an expensive option as he leaked 36 runs from his four overs for a wicket. Australian left-arm pacer Dirk Nannes proved even costlier as late hitting by Subramaniam Badrinath spoiled his figures as the left-armer gave away 46 runs from his four overs for a wicket.
On the other hand, Chris Morris and Aaron Phangiso proved effective with the ball for the local side as they allowed only 41 runs from their eight overs taking three wickets. Morris took 1/24 while Phangiso registered figures of 2/17.
Chasing a massive target required someone to play an anchoring role and a lot was expected from Highveld Lions’ skipper Alviro Petersen but Australian left-arm fast bowler Doug Bollinger removed him for a Golden Duck.
However, Gulam Bodi (64 from 46 – 5 fours, 4 sixes) put his head down as hero of their previous match the young Quinton de Kock (5 from 8 – 1 four) was undone by Bollinger, thus leaving Highveld Lions struggling at two down for only eight runs on the board.
Gulam Bodi found it tough to get going under lights but never lost his cool and he waited for the ball to lose its sheen and swing and a No Ball right towards the end of the PowerPlay proved the turning point in changing complexion of his game.
Once he hit that six, he never turned back and started smashing all the Chennai Super Kings bowlers with authority in company of an experienced Niel McKenzie (32 from 34 – 4 fours) as the duo added 93 crucial runs for the third wicket from 64 balls to scroll their way back into contention.
Highveld Lions still needed 58 runs from 39 balls when Albie Morkel got rid of threatening Gulam Bodi and soon Ravinchandran Ashwin took the prized scalp of Niel Mckenzie leaving the local side in a spot of bother at four down for 115 runs from 16.2 overs.
Two young batsmen Jean Symes and Chris Morris were at the crease now but victory was still 44 runs away and they had only 22 balls to do the job.
Jean Symes (39 not out from 23 – 5 fours) took the role of hitting it consistently across the boundary while Chris Morris (12 not out from 7 – 1 six) also gave him a great helping hand as the pair achieved the winning run with three balls to spare.
The victory on one side has propelled the Highveld Lions close to Semi-Finals qualification while on the other it pushed Chennai Super Kings on brink of elimination as it was their second straight defeat in the competition.
Doug Bollinger, who is the most-capped player in CLT20, was impressive with the new ball as he finished with two for 18 from his four overs. His fellow Australian right-arm pacer Ben Hilfenhaus also bowled a miser spell of none for 24 from four overs. However, South African all-rounder Albie Morkel and India’s premier spinner Ravichandran Ashwin proved a little too expensive for the Chennai Super Kings as they reported figures of 3.3-0-35-1 and 4-0-42-1, respectively.
Left-arm off-spinner Aaron Phangiso was declared Man of the Match for his brilliant spell of off-spin bowling against a batting line-up which is renowned for tackling spinners better than anyone else.
Aaron Phangiso told the presentation party, "It was a nice wicket to bowl on, one of those days where the ball came nicely out of the hand. It is one of those wickets, it was a bit slow, you got to slow up your pace."
Chennai Super Kings skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said, "We got off to a very good start, we lost too many wickets in the middle, so we were not able to slog the way we could have, but we still got the score we wanted. I think 160 was a good score. The timing of the no-balls was crucial. Small things matter. All of a sudden the momentum shifted, they were able to score a lot more freely. The quicks were bowling well [so gave them three overs each at the start]."
Highveld Lions captain Alviro Petersen stated, "Halfway through the game I thought we gave 15 runs too many. The batsmen stayed calm. Bodi played exceptionally well with McKenzie and the two young men finished it for us. It was a case of getting to the last three overs. Guys at the end showed some mettle and steel. Generally 10-15 overs is a sort of dead period, you tend to knock it around, but Gulam never allowed the rate to go beyond 10-11 runs an over."
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