Giants flaunt their defending skills this time, beat Capitals by a huge margin:
Once again the Dubai Capitals and Gulf Giants met but this time at the Sharjah Cricket Ground which stood prepared to host its second game of the tournament. Captains, James Vince and Rovman Powell, entered the ground for the toss. Winning the toss, Powell opted to field first.
The young Rehan Ahmed along with his Skipper and fellow English came to open the innings while Isuru Udana was seen gearing up to bowl the first over. Fabian Allen came to bowl the second and struck Rehan’s pad on his second delivery. This was followed by a huge appeal from him but Umpire did not find anything interesting. Powell, half-heartedly, reviewed it only to find that the ball-tracking had a yellow bar. Rehan on the next three balls kept on hitting the ball and clearing the boundary with precision. Udana returned and drew first blood by sending Rehan back to the pavilion. Chris Lynn, playing his first match today in the ILT20, entered to join his captain. Vince struck Mujeeb ur Rehman in his first over for two back to back fours.
Next two overs saw a few gaps being cleared and the power play ended with Giants at 48/1. Akif Raja, who bowled the first one after the powerplay, delivered a decent over. Similarly, Fabian Allen bowled to control the run rate. Somehow, tables turned after the strategic timeout ended as Vince started firing on all guns, like always. He thrashed Allen for 20 runs in one of his overs and Mujeeb for 16 runs in the next. However Mujeeb was quick to make amends as his ball flew away after touching the leading edge of Lynn’s bat thus giving Karunaratne a chance to safely catch the ball. It was now turn for David Wiese to come in as Lynn walked back.
Flow of runs became nearly static over the few overs after which Akif Raja cleaned both James Vince and David Wiese on back to back deliveries, getting himself a hattrick chance. Liam Dawson’s single denied him of a hattrick but Akif Raja at least got something to show next to his name.
Wiese’s departure saw Shimron Hetmyer coming to the ground, who did not let the departure of his captain come in the way of his efforts to make his team reach at least 180. Hetmyer made sure at least one boundary per over was cleared. Seeing his attacking mode on, Dawson also started working on the plan. Two huge sixes and a wicket in the last over pushed the Giants to bag an impressive tally of 181.
DUBAI CAPITALS’ INNINGS:
Richard Gleeson with the new ball bowled to Uthappa on the strike, who showed signs of discomfort from the first ball. Gleeson’s over ended with Uthappa’s prized wicket falling after Ashwanth Valthapa made no fumble catching him behind the wickets.
Chirag Suri joined Joe Root after Uthappa’s early fall. Sanchit Sharma bowled the second over and Root reverse swept his ball over the short third for a four. Gleeson returned to bowl more of his rippers to trouble the batters. The 5th over, though, brought more misery for the Capitals as Wiese ended the tenure of two batters. His first dismissal was an LBW which sent Suri back and the next ended Captain Powell’s stay on the crease. Power play ended and Capitals only had 38 runs in their bag with three wickets already down.
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Spin was introduced soon after the power play ended. Rehan came to roll his arms over and used his immaculate googly to hoodwink Joe Root. The wrong one stopped only after crashing into the off timber. Yousaf Pathan joined Dasun Shanaka in the field. Next two overs were silent except strike rotations and David Wiese was again entrusted by his Skipper to bring a dismissal which he did by bowling a slow delivery to Pathan who struck it straight in the hands of Dawson standing at covers.
Shanaka gave Rehan a triplet of fours and tried to revive his team’s chances to come back in the hunt but Sharma in his next over ended, both, his stay on the crease and his team’s probability of making a comeback. Chamika Karunaratne trod towards the field. The Capitals’ wickets were falling like houses of cards. Chris Jordan made a return and struck Allen’s pads followed by a huge appeal. Umpire looked uninterested so the third Umpire was consulted. The replay showed that the ball was hitting the leg stump but not enough to change the color of the bar from yellow to red. However the very next ball, Jordan bowled out Chamika leaving no space for doubt this time.
13 overs ended and Capitals were 7 down at 73. Gleeson came to finish the remaining overs of his spell. Udana attempted to hit the yorker by Gleeson but ended up paying for his mistake by losing his wicket as Vince casually caught it at mid-off.
Giants were just 2 wickets away from the win while Capitals still needed 102 runs from 6 overs with asking rate as high as 17 RPO. Chris Jordan came to bowl the 15th over and ended the Capitals’ misery as he sent the remaining batsmen to bundle up the opposition for just 80 runs. Giants bested the game by 101 runs, thus winning back their top spot in the table.
