Superstars register a comprehensive win

0

Hyderabad: The Chennai Superstars with an all-round disciplined and tactical performance registered a comprehensive six-wicket victory over debutants Dhaka Warriors in the second match of the ICL 20s Indian Championship here at the LB stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday.

After opting to bat first, Warriors set off to a flying start with the left–right formidable opening combination of Shahriar Nafees and Mohammad Nazimuddin.

In fact, Nafees was in destructive mood as he fired three sparkling off-side boundaries to place his team at 16 for no loss at the end of the first 2 overs but unfortunately he mistimed a shot to Syed off the bowling of Jesuraj and departed after a quickfire 18 off 13 balls, including four hits to the boundary.

But that hardly stopped the run flow as Nazimuddin was joined by Aftab Ahmed in the middle who dealt in nothing less than big boundaries and scored at a strike rate of two hundred percent.

The extravagant stroke-play from the top-order saw Warriors reach 54-1 after 5 overs.

However, premiere spinner J Syed Mohammad and medium pacer Ganapathi Vignesh and Tamil Kumaran came out to Superstars' rescue as they put breaks on the Warrior's juggernaut.

It was Syed who ended Aftab's cameo for a well made thirty. Yet the Bangladeshis were in full control of the match at the end of 10 overs, comfortably placed on 80-2.

But just then Ganapathi Vignesh (2-25) and Tamil Kumaran (2-35) bowled brilliantly to bring Superstars back into the match with a bang destroying the Warriors' middle-order and reducing them to 89-5 by the 12th over. Man of the Match, Syed meanwhile was working up a great spell of spin bowling and ended with an impressive figure of 12-1 in his allotted four overs.

The Warriors could never recover from the middle-order collapse. Though wicketkeeper-batsman Dhiman Ghosh (21) first with Farhad Reza (12) and then in the able company of Mohammad Rafique (17) managed to stabilize the innings but could put up only a total of 142 in the end.

Replying to a modest target, the Superstars' openers -- Ian Harvey & Vignesh got off to a explosive start scoring 36 runs off the first two overs, with fifty coming in only the third over off just seventeen balls, creating a record for the fastest fifty in the Twenty20 format of the game.

It finally took an arm ball from the experienced Rafique to end the outstanding partnership with Vignesh's wicket for a well made 25 off only 10 balls.

A twin spin attack in form of Rafique & Mosharraf Hossain got the Warriors back in the game with two quick wickets of Harvey and Jesuraj. But Warriors could never quite recover from the deadly opening onslaught of Vignesh & Harvey.

And later a composed 54-run partnership between the Russel Arnold & Hemanth Kumar saw the Superstars winning easily with two overs to spare.