The second match of the Edelweiss 20s Challenge being played at The Tau Devi Lal stadium, Panchkula on Monday, featured two big teams of the tournament, the Delhi Giants and Mumbai Champs. Delhi Giants won the match by 6 wickets and Abbas Ali was declared Man of the Match.
Restricting the Mumbai Champs to only 115/5 in 20 overs, led by a superb bowling performance from left-arm spinner Ali Murtaza, the Giants romped home to victory led by some breathtaking batting by Abbas Ali.
Nathan Astle leading the side in the absence of the injured Brian Lara, won the toss and elected to bat on a pitch which looked dry and flat.
The Champs opened the innings with the promising Dheeraj Jadhav and new recruit Sri Lankan S Jayantha. The Mumbai Champs openers got off to a cautious start especially facing one of the fastest bowlers in the world and star attraction of the Edelweiss 20s challenge, Shane Bond.
At the end of the first five overs the Champs were 31 for no loss. The giants bowling was disciplined, hardly giving any room to the Mumbai batsmen. Soon the Champs were left at 84/4 by the end of the 15th over with hardly any significant partnership.
For the Giants Ali Murtaza and Dale Benkestein bowled some tight overs in the middle of the innings, hardly giving the Mumbai batsmen any room to play their strokes.
The Mumbai Champs innings was finally restricted to 115 for 5 at the end of the 20 overs. The pick of the bowlers for the Giants was again the young left-arm spinner Ali Murtaza picking two important wickets, especially of the in-form Mumbai Champs opener D Jadhav at a crucial stage of the innings.
In reply the Giants lost early wickets with both Monish Sharma and captain Marvan Atapattu back in the dug, out by the 3rd over, reducing the Gaints to 11/2.
This brought the superb Abbas Ali to the wicket, who got into the act right away taking 16 runs of a Tino Best over.
Gunawardane soon got into the act and he along with Abbas Ali were displaying a wide array of strokes. Astle turned to the spin of Avinash Yadhav who responded splendidly with a first-ball wicket, castling the dangerous Avishka Gunwardene for 17.
Kasprowicz soon got into the act getting the wicket of A Bali, reducing the Giants to 55/4. By the 10th over the Giants score read 58/4 leaving the match delicately poised. But Abbas Ali was rock solid and along with Nic Pothas, added a superb partnership of 61 runs to take the Giants home in the 19th over.
Brief scores: Mumbai Champs 115 for 5 (Nathan Astle 32, D Jadhav 27, Ali Murtaza 2/16) lost by six wickets to Delhi Giants (Abbas Ali 64, Nic Pothas 18, Van Der Wath 1/17)
