Ali Murtaza (2/16) and Abbas Ali (64 n.o.) played their role to perfection as former laid the foundation restricting Mumbai Champs to 115/5, after bowling some tight spells while the latter excelled with the bat to steer Delhi Giants scoring a six-wicket victory over their opponents in the Edelweiss 20s Challenge played at The Tau Devil Lal stadium here on Monday.
Youngsters Abbas Ali was later declared man of the match for his scintillating batting performance. Tournament’s two big teams, Delhi Giants & Mumbai Champs fought down hard against each other to start off their campaign with a win but ultimately Giants won the match by 6 wickets.
Restricting the Mumbai Champs to only 115/5 in 20 over, Giants led by superb bowling performance from left arm spinner Ali Murtaza. Nathan Astle, who led the Mumbai side in absence of injured Brian Lara, won the toss & elected to bat on a pitch that looked dry and flat.
The Champs opened the innings with the promising Dheeraj Jadhav and new recruit Sri Lankan S Jayantha. The duo got off to a cautious start as they were facing one of the fastest bowlers in the world and star attraction of the event New Zealand’s Shane Bond.
Champs were 31 for no loss after the first five overs. The Giants’ bowlers exhibited tremendous discipline, as they didn’t give any room to Mumbai batsmen to score freely. The Champs were soon struggling at 84 /4 at the end of the 15th over since they hadn’t enjoyed any significant partnership early on.
The Mumbai Champs finished their innings at the score of 115 for 5 in their quota of overs. The pick of the bowlers for the Giants was the young left arm spinner Ali Murtaza who dismissed two important batsmen especially the inform Mumbai Champs opener, D Jadhav at the crucial stage of the innings.
Replying to the paltry total, Giants lost early wickets with both the openers Monish Sharma and skipper Marvan Atapattu went back in the dug out with Gaints tottering at 11/2 in the very third over. Abbas Ali joined the proceedings and got his act right away stealing 16 runs of a Dino Best over.
Gunawardane soon also got into the groove, as both displayed wide array of strokes ripping apart Mumbai bowling attack. Astle shifted to spin by bringing in Avinash Yadhav who responded splendidly with a first ball wicket castling dangerous Avishka Gunawardane for 17.
Kasprowicz departed Abhinav Bali, reducing the Gaints to 55/4 in the 10th over with Gaints scoreboard reading 58/4 leaving the match evenly poised.
But Abbas Ali stood like a rock as he took the match away from the hands of Mumbai Champs combining well with Nic Pothas. The duo stitched a crucial fifth wicket partnership of 61 runs to seal the match in Giants favour with 10 balls to spare.
Brief scores: Mumbai Champs: 115 for 5 in 20 overs (Nathan Astle 32, D Jadhav 27, Ali Murtaza 2/ 16) lost by six wickets to Delhi Giants: 116/4 in 18.2 overs (Abbas Ali 64, Nic Pothas 18, Van Der Wath 1/17).
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