Champions League T20: Review of the final league day of the tournament
On the final league day of the Airtel Champions League T20, Chennai Super Kings and Wayamba prevailed in their fixtures of the day.
Wayamba’s victory was no more than a denial of a whitewash, but Chennai Super King’s 10 runs win over Warriors in the nail biting clash at St. George’s Park, Port Elizabeth paved the way for both the sides to make the semi-finals of the ongoing T20 tournament
at the cost of Victoria Bushrangers.
The competitiveness of Airtel Champions League T20 can be better assessed from the fact that the semi-finalists of the tournament from both the groups were decided in the final league games, except http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Australia-c844 Redbacks, who qualified for the semi-final
spot after winning their 1st three successive games.
In the Group A, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Victoria-c859 Bushrangers, Warriors and Chennai Super Kings were competing for a berth in the semi-final. Warriors, with a game in its pocket, was leading Group A’s points table with six points followed by Victorians with six points having played
all of their CLT20 fixtures. Chennai Super Kings, also with a game to spare, were at No. 3 on the point’s chart of Group A.
For Chennai, yesterday’s game was a must win to progress to the next round while Warriors prospects for a place in the semis were bright even after losing by a small margin.
This is what has happened yesterday. The close 10-run win of Chennai not only earned them Friday’s game at Centurion but also confirmed Warriors’ presence at Centurion for the second semi-final of the Champions League T20 on Saturday, 25th of
September.
The following day, Royal Challengers Bangalore had qualified for the semi final from Group B after beating the Lions by six wickets at New Wanderers Stadium Johannesburg. The second semi-finalist of Group B, the Redbacks, defeated listless Guyana the same
day in an inconsequential game at the same venue of Johannesburg.
The first match of the final league day saw the least favourites of the tournament, Wayamba, winning its match against Central Districts by a massive margin of 74 runs.
Central Districts’ batting line-up, who had performed remarkably in earlier matches against tougher sides, looked out of flair in this match as the side kept on losing wickets at regular intervals.
Only four of its batsmen managed to get past single-digit scores, but all of them succumbed to scores below 20. Having scored 19 runs off 22 balls, wicketkeeper Bevan Griggs led the scorecard of Central Districts. Among the rest of the seven batsmen, who
failed to enter double figures, there were three first-ball ducks.
The credit of the victory goes to the Wayamba bowling attack that was led by Ajantha Mendis with his 3 for 13 from 3 overs. After setting a gettable target of 145 runs, the bowlers of Wayamba well supported by the fielders did not let the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Central-Districts-c777
line up free even at a single point of the game. Both http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ajantha-c42419 Mendis shared three wickets each. Rangana Herath was outstanding with the ball conceding only seven runs from 4 overs picking up two wickets as well.
In the last league match of the tournament, Michael Hussey and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Murali-Vijay-c78035 bagged Chennai a spot in the semi-finals. The opening partners shared a half-century opening stand providing their side a strong foundation, though the strong foundation was not
well capitalized by the rest of the cast. Only skipper Dhoni showed some courage with his 21-ball 31 as Chennai set up an easy target of 136 runs for Warriors. But the Warriors failed to chase that meagre target even and at the end of allotted 20 overs, the
side was still 10 runs behind Chennai’s total with two wickets intact.
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