The big crowd here in LBS Stadium Hyderabad on October 10 woke up from, a sweet dream like splendid entertainment of one hour to get enthralled by a close battle of Twenty20 match. Inzamam was in a aggressive mood to take revenge for their defeat in the final of the last version of the ICL. He opted to field first and with his arsenal of world class bowlers he wanted to cut Heroes in to pieces. But Cricket360 could feel the spark of heroism from the very beginning itself as Razaque volleyed the ball to the sign boards.

When cricket score was about to roar up, from 18 on board, he missed one and was shown the way back by Mahmood, the keeper. Then it was like a black Friday for Badshahs, as their pace heads were murdered brutally by Ambaty Rayudu, the local hero who had a splendid season in the last ICL tournament. He was merciless as he got the taste of blood, in the crease. Five times he propelled the ball into the space extending over the boundaries and constructed the first fifty of this ICL season. Hyderabad Heroes reached three figures in just 12.1 over. Rayudu, but found Imran Farhat on his way at extra cover boundary during his sixth attempt to fly over the ropes of Sami. Cricket360 credits him with the best entertainer in the opening match of ICL.

The fell of Rayudu, created pressure among Hyderabad Heroes and Maher too couldn’t escape from it. He was a perfect partner to Rayudu, but in his bid to increase run rate, he was bounced back to pavilion by Naved- Ul- Hasan. Cricket360 expected much from Kemp but he couldn’t entertain the crowd and the disappointing South African was found shaking his head when caught by Nazir of Naved.

The Hyderabad Heroes couldn’t even get a glance of the big total they could have achieved, had they capitalized on the good knocks by Rayudu and Maher. At the end when the score board read 159/6 they fell short of 20 sure runs. But the luck came in the way of slow over rate by Lahore Badshahs to them. A bonus of six runs was added to their total to set the target for Badshahs at 165 in 20 overs.

Badshahs were troubled by not only Heroes but the lights also. They lost early wickets and were unable to make any aggressive shots as they were chained by Hyderabad bowlers. Further, when the score was 30 runs in six overs for two wickets, they faced the heavy blow. The flood lights went off and the stands were engulfed in uncertainty. Cricket360 analyses that the match was placed in such a situation, with Nazir at the crease with 19 runs and in good form and it could have gone either way.

But this time the Friday had something bitter to offer for the Pakistanis. The V. Jayadevan rule adopted by ICL instead of ICC’s DuckWorth-Louis rule, refused Badshahs their first win in this tournament as they were short of 18 runs as per calculation. Cricket360 too feels sympathetic for Badshahs to have such an unfortunate starting in the season, but after all it’s all fair whether in love, war and the GAME!

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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