Brett Lee starred with a stunning all-round performance as New South Wales beat Trinidad & Tobago to win the inaugural Champions League Twenty20, and with it a jackpot of US$ 2.5 million, in Hyderabad. The 41-run margin of victory, however, didn’t mean it was a one-sided contest: T&T dominated initially, reducing NSW to 83 for 6, before Lee’s fighting innings lifted his side to a competitive total. He then returned for a fiery spell with the new ball, jolting T&T’s chase with two early wickets.
The match was won and lost in ten overs – the last five of the NSW innings and the first five of T&T’s – and it was Lee who imposed himself on the game-breaking moments. The game had several subplots – the nervy collapse of both top orders, Ravi Rampaul’s canny seam bowling, Steven Smith’s sensible support act and the threat posed by Kieron Pollard – but the one that had the biggest impact was Lee’s all-round contribution.
He walked in with NSW tottering and proceeded to slowly pull them out of the hole before shifting gears to propel them to a competitive score. It was almost the perfect counter punch. Lee’s first priority was safety – he scored just 7 off 13 deliveries – but, knowing that meandering to a below-par total would be futile against an aggressive T&T team, he upped the ante with precise and powerful blows in the final overs.
Lee launched his assault in the 16th over against Lendl Simmons: the first delivery – a full toss – was swung over square-leg for six, the fourth was hit over long-on, and the last one carved to the cover boundary. From then on he repeatedly cleared the front leg and swung cleanly through the line. Navin Stewart disappeared over long-on and Sherwin Ganga was heaved over midwicket. Lee got support from Steven Smith, who did what was required: give the strike to Lee, try to pinch the occasional boundary, and ensure he didn’t lose his wicket.
Lee was the last man out but wasn’t done for the night. He returned to harass the T&T top order with pace, bounce and movement. He bowled the impetuous William Perkins with a full, fast and straight delivery and removed Lendl Simmons by taking a sharp return catch off a slower one. Stuart Clark, with his slower cutters, and Doug Bollinger, with his bounce from short of length, proceeded to strangle T&T’s middle order and it was left to that man Pollard to try to do the improbable. And he nearly did.
Throughout this tournament, Pollard has batted like Lance Klusener did in the 1999 World Cup. No target seemed to be too much for him. Just like Klusener, he showed unbelievable composure: he started his innings calmly, dealing in singles, before he unleashed his own brand of razzmatazz. He pulled a free hit from Bollinger over midwicket, swung Nathan Hauritz over long-on and got the equation down to 47 from 31 balls when it happened. He went for another six off Hauritz but couldn’t clear the boundary, and who else but Lee at long-on settled under the catch. With Pollard’s exit, Trinidad’s dream run came to a crushing halt, and they had to settle for second prize – US$ 1.3 million.
It ended with defeat, but the game had started splendidly for T&T. If NSW were to reach a huge total, their two hard-hitting openers had to contribute heavily but that didn’t happen. T&T started with a spin-seam combination and Sherwin Ganga, the offspinner, bowled three overs in the Powerplay. David Warner opted to play a weak reverse sweep against him and nearly edged it back to the bowler. Warner did go on to thread a couple of boundaries on the off side but never looked in. Meanwhile the pressure told on his partner Phillip Hughes, who faced three balls in the first three overs, and fell, trying to slog-pull the impressive Ravi Rampaul.
While Sherwin Ganga was miserly, it was Rampaul who really shone with a fine display of canny seam bowling. He hit a full length, got the ball to cut both ways and built pressure. One moment captured his combative spirit perfectly: When Warner tried to impose himself with a crashing cover-drive, Rampaul fired in a sharp 140 kmph bouncer that flew past the startled batsman.
The chance for NSW to break free came in the fifth over bowled by Dwayne Bravo, who had leaked runs in the semi-final. Katich started off with a bottom-hand powered six over long-on but Warner fell in the same over, edging one to right of backward point where Dave Mohammed took a fine catch.
What followed was a nervy phase for NSW as one batsman after another fell to soft dismissals. Katich punched Bravo straight to mid-off, Moises Henriques swung a short delivery to fine-leg, Ben Rohrer pulled a long hop straight to deep midwicket, and Daniel Smith chopped a length delivery back on to his stumps. But Lee and Smith saved the day with some sensible batting before Lee returned with the ball to end T&T’s dream.
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written by Swapnil
\\ tags: Champions League, CLT20, New South Wales, Trinidad & Tobago
There was no nerve-jangling, last-ball finish today, like there was when New South Wales pipped Victoria twice to win last season’s Big Bash. Instead, the Australian champions delivered a clinical performance on a difficult Feroz Shah Kotla pitch, one that ensured the first semi-final of the Champions League was one of the most one-sided matches of the tournament.
On the same pitch where fewer than 200 runs were scored in the match between Delhi Daredevils and Cape Cobras a day ago, the NSW openers David Warner and Phillip Hughes provided a powerful start, which allowed them to post 169, far more than the 110 Victoria captain Cameron White had hoped to limit them to. A tough chase became virtually impossible when offspinner Nathan Hauritz, who was given the second over, struck twice in three deliveries, getting rid of Victoria’s openers.
The build-up to the highly anticipated contest between the Australian sides centered around how difficult the track would be for power-hitting and, when Hughes was struck on the arm by a bouncer from Peter Siddle in the second over, it seemed the batsmen would have toil for their runs.
Warner, though, doesn’t toil for his runs. His Australia call-up and an IPL contract were results of his ability to tear into bowling attacks and he did just that in front of a disappointingly thin Delhi crowd. The stand-out feature of his innings was his straight-hitting on a pitch with low bounce: both his sixes were clean hits over long-off and he started the onslaught with a searing flat-batted swipe past the bowler, Shane Harwood, in the third over.
That boundary began a prosperous period for NSW. Warner was sublime, bludgeoning 25 runs off ten deliveries he faced from an off-colour Siddle. He rounded off the Powerplay with a lofted straight drive over Siddle’s head and launched him to the extra-cover boundary to take NSW to 56.
Victoria got a lucky break in the next over, when Warner was run out attempting a suicidal run after Hughes pushed the ball to point. A livid Warner stormed back to the dug-out, falling two short of a well-deserved half-century.
Hughes had coasted through the Powerplays but switched to top gear after that dismissal. Most of his shots started with him getting the front foot out of the way, whether he crashed the ball past point, caressed it through extra cover, or bludgeoned towards midwicket. He had scored 20 off his previous seven deliveries when he was foxed by Clint McKay’s back-of-the-hand slower ball, which batsmen have found extremely hard to pick in this tournament.
Daniel Smith, promoted to No. 3, and captain Simon Katich kept the momentum up, picking off boundaries early in the over and working the singles. Victoria did manage to restrict the runs towards the end though; the only boundaries in the last five overs were a couple of innovative paddle-scoops to fine leg from Ben Rohrer.
The only thing that prevented New South Wales from entering the semi-final unbeaten was a stunning 18-ball 54 from Trinidad & Tobago batsman Kieron Pollard. Victoria needed something similar but Hauritz’s blows, followed by Lee’s dismissal of Aiden Blizzard, made their task incredibly hard.
After the Powerplay, Victoria had limped to only 17 for 3, and even their experienced and highly-rated duo of White and David Hussey couldn’t pull off a rescue act. It was a slow and painful slide to an embarrassing defeat for Victoria and they didn’t even manage three figures. White had predicted at the toss that it would be a “hell of a chase” whatever NSW managed; he couldn’t have imagined a more hellish chase.
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written by Swapnil
\\ tags: Champions League, CLT20, New South Wales, Victoria
On a pitch that offered bounce and some movement, Stuart Clark led a disciplined bowling performance to restrict Somerset to a below-par 111 which New South Wales knocked off without breaking a sweat in Hyderabad. With this crushing win NSW have joined their Australian counterparts Victoria in the Champions League semi-finals.
It was a must-win game for NSW and they came to the party in style. Brett Lee bowled with fire, Clark was as canny as ever and David Warner unleashed hell as NSW sealed the chase in 11.5 overs. Warner got them off to an explosive start, carting boundaries all around the ground. There were couple of cut shots that stood out for his dexterity in finding the gap in a packed off-side field but the highlight was a six off Omari Banks, the offspinner. Warner backed away a touch and was actually beaten in flight but lunged out to chip it all the way over the extra-cover boundary. While the batsmen indulged themselves, the win was set up by some fine bowling from Clark and Lee.
Clark was steady as ever with his back-of-a-length deliveries, getting them to cut either way. He was introduced into the attack in the fifth over and swung into action immediately with a double strike. He induced Craig Kieswetter into holing out to mid-on and had Justin Langer swinging without control to deep midwicket.
In the next over, Clark got one to kick up from short of a length and had James Hildreth top-edging an attempted pull to fine leg. Arul Suppiah was run out in the same over and Somerset slipped from 24 for 0 to 39 for 4, a position from which they never recovered. Clark could have had another wicket but he dropped Zander de Bruyn off his bowling.
It might have been Clark who did the major damage, but the platform was laid by a hostile spell from Lee, who didn’t shy from using short deliveries and troubled both the openers. He got away swing and bounce as he went hard at them. Doug Bollinger gave away a few fours but Lee yielded just four runs from the first two overs. The pressure eventually told on the openers who tried to break free against Clark and threw their wickets away. Lee returned in the end overs to pick up a wicket and kept a lid on the scoring.
This tournament is the farewell song of Langer, who is retiring from competitive cricket after this game, but nothing has gone right for him. The reflexes seems to have slowed down and today, he was beaten for pace on quite a few occasions. However, there was one little moment that reminded you of the past: Bollinger had served him a short delivery on the free hit and Langer swiveled to unfurl a crunchy pull to the midwicket boundary.
But there was little else to celebrate for Langer and his men as the ruthless NSW machine rolled along without any trouble.
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written by Swapnil
\\ tags: Champions League, CLT20, New South Wales, Somerset
It’s said that you can win or lose a Twenty20 game in a blink and Kieron Pollard, batting like a man possessed, proved the adage right by engineering a stunning win against New South Wales.
‘It’s not over until it’s over’ is another of those cricketing clichés that is not always held to account but tonight was the night for clichés – in a Hyderabad minute, everything changed.
NSW unleashed their two dynamites, David Warner and Phillip Hughes, who propelled them to 170, which seemed more than enough at one stage but Pollard, with a violent 18-ball 54, crafted a remarkable comeback in Twenty20 history.
The chase never seemed to be going anywhere after the top order had combusted and when Darren Bravo was run out, the equation read: 80 from 42 balls. Game over, surely? But everything changed in stunning fashion as first Denesh Ramdin and then Pollard played out of their skins to turn the game on its head.
It all began in the 14th over, bowled by Stuart Clark. Ramdin pinged the midwicket boundary twice before he lifted the spinner Steven Smith in the next over for a boundary over extra-cover and a slog-swept six over midwicket. However, Ramdin fell in the next over and once again, NSW were the favourites or so one thought.
If it started in the 14th over, the game-breaker was the 17th over in which Pollard simply went berserk against the medium-pace of Moises Henriques and looted 27 runs. The second ball disappeared to long-off, the third was sliced over point, the fourth, a full toss, was collected by a spectator beyond midwicket boundary, the next, another nervy full toss, was picked up from behind deep square-leg boundary, and the last delivery flew to third man. Game almost over.
If there was any doubt, it vanished when Simon Katich handed Henriques the responsibility of bowling the 19th over and Pollard finished off the chase with a couple of bludgeoned sixes.
NSW had done everything that they could till Pollard’s whirlwind innings,. The bowling was disciplined and the batting was led from the front by Warner and Hughes. With only a few deliveries into the contest it was clear that pace on the ball was going to be fodder for both batsmen, especially when T&T didn’t possess anyone with real speed. Warner and Hughes stayed adjacent to the line and threaded the off-side with their punches, cuts, and muscled drives.
T&T had to switch to plan B and Daren Ganga quickly brought on the spinners and medium-pacers with the ability to take pace off the ball. It worked initially as NSW slowed down from 50 in six overs to 77 in 11. The two spinners in operation at that period were the chinaman bowler Dave Mohammed and the accurate offspinner Sherwin Ganga, who both took the ball away from the left-handed openers. Both batsmen managed to prevent the adrenalin rush from kicking in and played out this period intelligently with dabbed singles and twos.
They knew Ganga had to change his bowlers at some point and the opportunity to break free came in the 12 th over against the legspinner Samuel Badree. Unlike Sherwin Ganga and Mohammed, Badree was guilty of overpitching his flighted deliveries and Warner took full toll: Two disappeared over long-on and long-off and as Badree, in trying to adjust his length, slipped in long-hops, Warner crashed them to square-leg and swung the last one over midwicket. Twenty-four runs were looted in that over and the run-rate had shot up again.
Ganga did the obvious by taking out Badree and bringing back his two best spinners. Mohammed picked up Warner’s wicket and teased Hughes with his variations but Hughes knew he had to just wait for the seamers to return. And when they did, he hit them around the ground. Ravi Rampaul, who had given away three boundaries in the first over of the innings, was carted to the point and straight boundaries by Warner while Henriques lofted Lendl Simmons to long-on and to midwicket boundary.
Hughes was as unconventional as ever; those feet never seem to get in line but his bat does as he slashes and carves it around like a sword. There wasn’t a single “beautiful” shot in the traditional sense of the word but then there is nothing traditional about Hughes’ batting. However, there was, as ever, quite bit of skill in his violence. A shot that stood out from the general massacre that he was attempting to unleash was as deft and skilful as it gets: Rampaul almost slipped in a yorker on the middle stump in the 19th over, perhaps a touch short of the blockhole. Hughes had opened his stance, waiting to bludgeon it, but on seeing the length, he crouched back, opened the bat-face and guided it deliberately to left of backward point and to the boundary.
Hughes would have thought he had done enough to be the hero for the day but Pollard had decided to seize the day.
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written by Swapnil
\\ tags: Champions League, CLT20, New South Wales, Trinidad & Tobago
New South Wales, the champions of Australia’s Big Bash, were the first team from Group B to secure passage, with points carried forward, to the second round of the Champions League. They did so by showing tremendous adaptability in both their matches on slow Delhi pitches with low bounce. Phillip Hughes and Moises Henriques quickly assessed what a competitive total would be on such a surface – only 130 was needed today – and their bowlers, fast and spin alike, bowled a dangerous stump-to-stump line, snuffing out Sussex’s chase with early wickets and extremely few Powerplay runs.
The game was won for NSW during the 90-run partnership between Hughes and Henriques. Hughes played the patient innings while Henriques used the long handle to telling effect. Both batsmen reached half-centuries but, despite being extremely well set, were unable to provide the slog-over thrust needed to take the total towards 150. That they were unable to do so was more an indictment of how difficult batting was on this surface than a criticism of their power-hitting skills.
Just how tough Sussex’s chase would be was evident in Brett Lee’s opening over of the chase. Bowling fast and straight, Lee pitched one on a length: the ball stayed low, ripped through Ed Joyce’s defence, and crashed into the middle of off stump. The total of 130 had suddenly grown in stature.
NSW’s innings was in strife at 40 for 2 and they had reached only 50 at the half-way stage when the acceleration came. Hughes hit the first six in the 11th over, muscling Piyush Chawla with a flat bat over long off, and Henriques, who was dropped at cover a few balls later, struck the second, slog-sweeping over deep midwicket. NSW took 17 runs off the 11th over and appeared to be back on track. Henriques had struck three sixes during his cameo against the Eagles and began to do a repeat, launching Rory Hamilton-Brown over extra cover and clearing the long-on boundary off James Kirtley.
The batsmen scored 45 runs between overs 10 and 15 and, with eight wickets in hand, a score of 150 was probable. There were no boundaries in the last four overs, though, the most eventful delivery being the beamer from Dwayne Smith that crashed into the wicketkeeper’s helmet, and NSW had to settle for less.
It isn’t often that a team scores merely 130 in a Twenty20 match despite having eight wickets in the bank but it was that sort of a pitch. It got lower and slower as the day wore on; the batsmen struggled to find timing and had to stay vigilant to keep out the occasional shooter. Robin Martin-Jenkins’ first delivery of the match set the tone as it thudded into the bottom of David Warner’s bat. The Sussex bowlers rarely wavered from the straight-and-narrow line, hoping they would hit if the batsmen misjudged the pace and bounce. It was a method NSW’s attack would implement with success.
After Brett Lee’s searing opening spell of 2-1-3-1, which included Joyce’s wicket, Doug Bollinger and Henriques kept the batsmen quiet. Sussex had scored only 26 off the Powerplay and, so when Simon Katich gave the ball to Steven Smith as soon as the fielding restrictions were lifted, Rory Hamilton-Brown charged the young legspinner immediately. He advanced and swung across the line but was beaten by flight and turn, leaving Daniel Smith with an easy stumping.
The chase was floundering at 26 for 2 and Dwayne Smith adopted a similar approach against Steven Smith. He swiped repeatedly across the line and was beaten. He eventually connected and sent the ball rapidly to the long-on boundary but Sussex needed him to contribute substantially. However, on a pitch that needed batsmen to remain watchful and balanced, Dwayne Smith moved towards leg to manufacture room to guide Bollinger to third man. He missed and was bowled. Sussex’s bad situation grew worse when Henriques struck with successive deliveries to reduce them to 64 for 5 and it became dire when two more fell with the score on 68.
Henriques ended an excellent match by dismissing Andy Hodd and finished with figures of 3 for 23 to go with his match-winning half-century.
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written by Swapnil
\\ tags: Champions League, CLT20, New South Wales, Sussex
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