West Indies knock off South Africa

That was the match which kept on swinging both ways with at one stage being as though the Trinidad&Tobago would just thrash the Cape Cobras and at another stage, it was as though Cape Cobras might pull off a thriller. In the end, as only one team can emerge victorious, it happened to be Trinidad & Tobago who beat the South African team by 2 wickets. One has to once again see a South African team choking in the crucial stage of a tournament. They have no one else to blame but themselves for their debacle who ended their innings with 137.

It is just confusing to see Cape Cobras neither losing wickets nor being able to cash up on the wickets in hand by going in for a kill towards the end of their innings. The main idea behind having wickets in hand is to go for it when the innings approach an end when there would be no idea in having wickets in hand. Looking at the way the Cape Cobras played, it was as though they had come in for a one day match rather than a T20 one. With this being a decisive match Cape Cobras' effort was simply not enough.

The Cape Cobras maintained a run-rate of 6.85 runs per over at the end of their innings which would have fetched a score of 343 had it been a 50 over match. But, that run-rate could get in just 137 on board in a T20 game chasing which is not at all an issue. However, chasing the same total demanded a lot from T&T who took it to the last over with just two balls left for the game to conclude. Trinidad & Tobago lost 8 wickets en route to their successful run chase of 138. One can imagine the fate had the score been slightly more.

One can hardly understand why Sherwin Ganga was made to bowl 3 overs when he gave away runs at a rate of 12.66 runs an over with his third over fetching 16 runs. The pitch was a tough one to bat on and Sherwin Ganga giving away so much runs cannot be let away. The Cape Cobras have themselves to blame when only two of the four batsmen stood to the occasion and neither did they play up to expectations nor did they allow other batsmen to do the scoring. Concluding the post, hats-off to T&T for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

A series of ducks in Ruhuna

Well yesterday the first match of the Nokia Champions League T20 tournament kick started with Ruhuna not only playing Trinidad&Tobago but also having a taste of their first defeat. Needless to be said, Trinidad&Tobago won the match by 5 wickets at Hyderabad. The match was one more instance where the team winning the toss ended up as the losing side and Ruhuna was that unlucky team to have done that yet again. If not for some Dinesh Chandimal, no other player from Ruhuna could really stand up to the occasion. Chandimal scored 50 runs to be the lone half century scorer of the game.

It is confusing to see Jayasuriya still opening the innings when there are so many young legs available who can do the job rather than relying up on a 43 year old guy. Of course, Sanath Jayasuriya has been known to strike the ball hard but those days were over some 4 years back which can be confirmed with Sachin Tendulkar keeping him warming the benches in the IPL 2010. Moreover, Jayasuriya was not picked up by any franchisee for this year's IPL. It is no doubt that Jayasuriya had his ball doing the talking though his bat had to just shut up after scoring 13 runs.

Jayasuriya scalped the wicket of Darren Ganga and returned with an economy of 5.00 runs an over after bowling his quota of 4 overs which made him the most economical bowler of the lot. Anyways, coming to the match, one can see three of the batsmen from Ruhuna scoring or rather getting out after scoring a duck and one player was unbeaten on zero. Another interesting fact of the match would be that the Ruhuna team played their 20 overs losing all ten wickets. That might not be of that importance but the way Ruhuna tackled the opposition was too poor.

Ruhuna had T&T reeling at 6/2 at the end of the 3^rd over but once again left Dwayne Bravo and Darren Ganga to rule them. There have been many matches where a team loses quick wickets initially and end up victorious towards the end and this time T&T need not be considered to be the underdogs. However, the scorecard suggests that until the entry of Sherwin Ganga who scored a quickfire 39* runs from 15 balls that eventually sealed the match for both the teams-with Ruhuna being the losers while T&T emerging the winners. Had Chintaka Perera been given the ball instead of Janoda, something might have worked out for Ruhuna.