Centurion: Sydney Sixers defeated Titans by two wickets to reach the finals of the ongoing Champions League Twenty20. The match went down to the last ball as Sixers needed one run to win the match, a cheeky run to the keeper meant that the Australian team will now face Highveld Lions in the finals on Sunday at Johannesburg.
Earlier in the day, Titans won the toss and elected to bat first on a pitch that was expected to slow a bit as the second half. Sydney Sixers’ opening bowlers have been wonderful in this tournament and they were right on the money in this match as well. Josh Hazlewood removed the inform Jacques Rudolpf in the first over of the match.
Rudolph’s wicket hurt Titans as they could not manage to rotate the strike which affected their run-rate. Other opener Henry Davids did hit one or two good shots but that was not enough. The pressure got to Heino Kuhn as he got bowled trying to play a pull stroke off a full delivery from Mitchell Starc.Titans’ captain Martin van Jaarsveld’s struggle continued as he lopped an easy catch to short cover to gove Starc his second wicket.
Titans were in dire state at the half-way stage with their net-rate around six. Davids and Behardien added 43 runs for the fourth wicket but both Behardien and van der Merwe were removed in the successive score. With the score at 82-5, David Wiese walked into bat and he changed the complexion of the match. Wiese after getting his eyes in clobbered some big sixes and hit the Sydney bowlers to every part of the ground.
Davids too joined in the party completing his fifty in the process. Wiese brought up the fastest fifty of the tournament and finished with an unbeaten 61 of just 28 balls to take Titans score to 163.
In reply, Sydney Sixers got off to a flier. Steve O’Keefe who was promoted to open the batting hit two boundaries in the first over. Regular opener Michael Lumb played some terrific shots and picked the gaps with ease. Together they took the score past 50 in the fifth over. Lumb was removed by a beautiful slower delivery from Alfonso Thomas. Number three batsman Nic Maddinson played some crispy strokes and he and O’Keefe added 31 runs in no time.
Sixers lost two quick wickets in the form of O’Keefe and their captain Haddin and that infused some panic in the team which resulted to the run-outs of Maddinson and Steven Smith. Sixers who were cruising at one point lost five wickets with the score at 113. Moises Henriques played a good hand of 28 to take Sixers close to the total.
Sixers needed eight runs of the last over and their last three runs were extra as their bowlers scrambled for every bye and leg byes. In the end it was the 14 runs that Cummins scored which proved decisive.
Brief Score:
Titans 163/5 (Wiese 61*, Davids 59*, Starc 2-33)
Sydney Sixers 164 for 8 (O'Keefe 32, Lumb 33, van der Merwe 1-23)
By Indian Sports News Network