Ambati Rayudu didn’t even give a chance to his partner Maher for completing his half century as he finished the episode off in the 19th over, with a stylish knock straight down to the boundary, ensuring a nine wicket win over Chandigarh Lions in the 19th I
CL T-20 Match. But Cricket360 opines that the victory was well scripted way back by an exceptional opening partnership between Razzaq and Maher within 17 overs.
Chandigarh Lions were looked like determined to defend their total of 141 runs for 6 wickets as they conceded only one run in the first over. But
Cricket360 could notice the opener’s strategy to stick on to the crease with singles ,ensuring the required run rate tick around 7 runs per over. After 7th over Heroes were 50 without any casualty. Razzaq but, started the fire works from the 10th over onwards, bowled by R Sharma. In the 11th over he looped Mongia over the heads for a six and he dared to replay the same shot immediately after the next delivery. The last ball of the over found him moving forward to charge the bowler for a straight boundary, excavating a total of 16 runs out of the over.
Heroes get past the 100 mark by a boundary by Razzaq of Andrew Hall in the 15th over. The partnership was well supported by Maher with 48 runs till the end. Razzaq, with his family turned up here in Gurgaon to cheer him up, left no rays of hope for the Lions by the time he was bowled by Uniyal in the 17th over. Later he was declared man of the match for his 66 runs contribution including 2 massive sixes, of 61 balls towards a convincing victory for his team over Lions by 9 wickets.
Earlier in the first innings, Chandigarh Lions managed 18 runs from the third over of the match but Chris Harris’s thinking to bring slow bowler IS Reddy in to the attack in the 5th over itself worked out for Heroes. The teenager got rid off Vincent, who scored a fast 20 runs in just 15 balls, on the 2nd delivery itself. Even though Chandigarh Lions managed to pick 50 runs in the first 6 overs, they had to wait for another 9 overs to double the total sacrificing 3 more wickets. IS Reddy once again struck by breaking the one and only challenging partnership of 42 runs between Mongia and TP Singh as he provoked the latter to hit in the air with Binny standing ready to see the batsman off for 19 runs.
Things became worst for Chandigarh Lions as Mongia too departed after taking 38 runs of just 32 balls in an attempt to clear Boje off the fence in the 18th over. Heroes’ bowlers especially, IS Readdy, Boje and Harris restricted Lions to a poor total of 141 runs for 6 wickets in 20 overs. Though three or four of the Lions could score a few runs, they eventually failed to convert a booming start by their openers in to a big total and as a result they had to taste failure for the first time in ICL Season 2.
