CLT20 Games 19+20

Barbados Tridents 138 for 4 (Franklin 33*, Carter 30, Sodhi 3-18) beat Northern Knights 135 for 8 (Devcich 47, Rampaul 3-34) by six wickets (D/L method)

James Franklin guided Barbados Tridents to a solitary win over Northern Knights in the inconsequential final group match of the Champions League T20. With 12 needed off the final over, Franklin hit fellow New Zealander Tim Southee's full tosses for a six and a four to haul Tridents home with two balls and six wickets to spare.

Zimbabwe limited-overs captain Elton Chigumbura played his part, lofting and pulling Trent Boult for a couple of fours in the penultimate over with 23 needed off 12. 

Jonathan Carter, the leading run-getter of the main round of the tournament, chipped in with a steady 30 before he fell to another relay catch from Knights, Anton Devcich and Daryl Mitchell the combination this time after Southee and Mitchell did it against Lahore Lions in the qualifiers.

The catch gave Ish Sodhi his third wicket, and it was the legspinner who had dented the chase after Tridents had motored to 49 for 1 in seven overs. Sodhi had Raymon Reifer and Jason Holder holing out in the space of three deliveries in his second over.

Dilshan Munaweera had given the chase a kickstart with a quick 20, but fell to a spectacular diving catch by Mitchell. Carter and Franklin steadied the innings with a 56-run fourth-wicket partnership in just under eight overs before Franklin and Chigumbura shared an unbeaten stand of 33 off 20.

Knights had labored to 135 for 8 in 19 overs after the match was marginally shortened following a nearly hour-long rain interruption during their innings. Before the break, Devcich and Daniel Flynn had put on 60 in 8.2 overs but the Knights captain fell to Munaweera just before the players went off, and Knights tapered off after the resumption.

Devcich was around till the 13th over but could never really get going in a run-a-ball 47. Several of his strokes were powered straight to fielders. He played and missed regularly, and even when they hadn't lost too many wickets, Knights weren't able to build much momentum.

In the same over in which Devcich was run out, Scott Styris swung his second ball to deep midwicket. BJ Watling looked good during his swift 29 but Devcich's crawl had cost Knights too many overs, and despite taking 46 off the last four overs, they fell short of posting a daunting target. 

Perth Scorchers 130 for 7 (Marsh 63*, Hafeez 2-8, Iqbal 2-20) beat Lahore Lions 124 for 6 (Nasim 69*, Paris 3-22) by three wickets

A must-win pressure-cooker contest for a team, an improbable equation from the outset, then a lost toss, a batting collapse, a seriously underwhelming total of 124, followed by an even more challenging task - to hold the opposition to 78. For most, it would have been a lost cause. But when it's a team from Pakistan, one almost expects a miracle every single time.

Lahore Lions employed Test-match fields from the first over, their spinners created panic in the Perth Scorchers ranks, their fielders gobbled away all the chances, the wicketkeeper affected a stumping, there were appeals that were given, there were ones that were not given too. 

For 13 overs, the hopes of Lions' progression to semis remained strong as Scorchers were reduced to 64 for 7, until Brad Hogg drove, cut and hoicked 15 runs in the 14th over, bowled by Adnan Rasool, to shut the doors on Lions and let Chennai Super Kings through to the knockouts. The result - Scorchers winning by three wickets - was only of academic interest.

Lions had been in such a situation in the qualification stage of the tournament too. Faced with a must-win task, they bowled out Southern Express for 109 to register a heavy 55-run win. But their batting this evening, and the Robert Frylinck assault in their previous game that ate away on their net run rate, left them too big a task at hand.

Still, Mohammed Hafeez shrugged away the shadow of suspect-action sleuths and provided the ideal start, nipping out the wicket of opener Craig Simmons in the first over, getting him caught bat-pad at short leg. 

Replays showed the ball had missed the edge though. There was an inside edge off the very next ball, and the catch was taken at short leg, but unfortunately for Hafeez, the umpire Rod Tucker missed it completely.

The first over set the tone for Lions' fightback as their spinners made regular strikes, with Mustafa Iqbal picking up two wickets in the fifth over. 

By the ninth over, Scorchers were reduced to 40 for 6 but Mitchell Marsh, the stand-in skipper, maintained an aggressive stance against the spinners and fast bowlers alike. Once Scorchers crossed the figure of 78, the 125-run target was achieved with relative ease.

Even that target had appeared improbable after the start Lions had to their innings. Joel Paris removed Nasir Jamshed and Umar Siddiq in the first over, then Marsh picked the big wicket of Hafeez in the second. Wahab Riaz, promoted up the order, did not make a dent to the score, departing in the fourth over for a duck. 

From 11 for 4, Lions were revived by two stands of 43 and 48, with Saad Nasim, unbeaten on 69, playing a part in both. However, the hopes of a strong total had ended with Umar Akmal's departure with the score on 54.

CLT20 Game 18 KKR V Dolphins

Kolkata Knight Riders 187 for 2 (Uthappa 85*, Pandey 76*) beat Dolphins 151 for 8 (Phehlukwayo 37, Narine 3-33) by 36 runs 

Leading in his 100th T20, against Dolphins in Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir wanted his side to do something different and test themselves before the semi-final. So for the second time in their streak of 13 victories, incidentally the longest for an Indian T20 side, Knight Riders batted first. 

It veered from their set game plan of allowing their spinners to tie up the opposition in knots before chasing a target but the end result was along expected lines, specially after Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey had razed the Dolphins attack with unbeaten fifties and a 153-run partnership, the highest stand in the Champions League.

Dolphins made a small dent early in Knight Riders' innings, getting rid of Gambhir and Jacques Kallis, and Kyle Abbott managed to slip in a couple of searching overs at the start, utilising some movement off the pitch. 

Then Uthappa and Pandey came together with the score at 34 for 2 in the fifth over and by the time the innings ended, their stand had come at a swift clip of 10 runs per over. Their batting was almost effortless, specially Uthappa's, whose polished drives were mixed in with well-timed steers behind the wicket.

Pandey, at the other end, used a swinging backlift to carve out fours and sixes. He also benefitted from two reprieves; he was dropped on 32 and 33 in the 13th and 14th overs and duly repaid Dolphins by smashing 42 off the next 19 balls he faced. 

He mauled Abbott, Dolphins' best bowler, scything and swinging his way to 21 runs in the 18th over. The ease with which the pair accumulated the runs meant that Knight Riders coasted at more than eight runs an over for most of their innings, before ending at 187 for 2.

In their previous games, Dolphins had shown glimpses of explosiveness in their batting but it didn't come together in this game. The early wickets added to the pressure of a tall chase but there were bright spots for Dolphins, particularly the entertaining, and at times brash, 63-run partnership between Khaya Zondo and Andile Phehlukwayo. 

The latter survived an edgy start before slamming some powerful shots, including a reverse sweep off Sunil Narine that came off due to his late adjustment. Narine contributed 3 for 33 to the win, which now places Knight Riders behind Surrey and Otago on the list of teams with most successive wins in T20s. 

CLT20 Games 16+17

Kings XI Punjab 139 for 3 (Saha 42*, Peterson 2-19) beat Cape Cobras 135 (Levi 42, Amla 40, Anureet 3-12, Akshar 3-22) by seven wickets

A late batting collapse in the Cape Cobras innings, triggered by career-best spells from Akshar Patel and Anureet Singh, helped Kings XI Punjab overcome an early blitz from Hashim Amla. Their batsmen then comfortably overhauled the middling target to make it four wins in four, ensuring the team finished at the top of the Group B table.

The pitch had been sluggish in the afternoon during the game between Barbados Tridents and Hobart Hurricanes and that had forced the groundsman to water the surface before the start of the match. One cannot be certain if the way Cobras started their innings was a result of that or the brilliance of one man. Amla saw his partner Richard Levi pick up two fours and a six in the first two overs - all poor deliveries - before spreading his wings.

Amla greeted Kings XI's best bowler, Akshar Patel, with a rasping cut shot in the third over and followed it up with two inside-out boundaries in the next over - one of them going all the way over the ropes. Thirteen runs came off the fourth over but it just happened to be the trailer. In the fifth over, Amla launched into Thisara Perera, picking up five consecutive boundaries and taking the team well past 50 in the process.

But the innings took a different turn once Amla holed out at long off to Karanveer Singh's legspin. The ball started gripping and stopping on the pitch again. Levi continued for a bit, finding the odd big hit and taking the team past 100 in the 13th over, before the wheels came off.

The next seven wickets, after Levi was dismissed, could only last for 33 more balls and only 30 runs were added in that period. 

Three of those wickets went to the impressive Akshar, who was also economical, giving away just two fours in his spell, and the other three to Anureet. Both also had to thank the agility of their wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha who affected two stumpings off Akshar and took a brilliant diving catch off Anureet.

The target of 136 was going to be hard to defend against the Kings XI batting line-up. They had been prolific during the IPL and they have been similarly ruthless in the Champions League this year. Their lowest total - 146 - came from 17.4 overs. So Cobras' best bet was to pick early wickets. But that never happened. 

Apart from Robin Peterson, who picked up the wickets of Virender Sehwag and Manan Vohra, none of the bowlers exerted any control over the batsmen and, with no real weak spot in their batting order, the run rate never dipped during any of the partnerships.

Sehwag and Vohra added 41 for the opening wicket, Saha joined Sehwag to add another 33. Once Sehwag was dismissed, Saha added 34 with Glenn Maxwell and paired with David Miller to take Kings XI over the line. 

Hobart Hurricanes 117 for 4 (Malik 39*, Hosein 2-25) beat Barbados Tridents 113 (Carter 42, Doherty 4-27) by six wickets

Another disciplined effort from Hobart Hurricanes' bowlers put the side in the Champions League T20 semi-finals following their six-wicket win over Barbados Tridents. Tridents' score of 113 was the lowest by a side batting first in a full game in this Champions League and although they fought back well with the ball, Shoaib Malik's unbeaten 39 kept the reins of the chase firmly with Hurricanes on a slow pitch.

Given their recent run of high scores and relative knowledge of the conditions in Mohali, Tridents captain Rayad Emrit had hoped his side would not struggle too much on a new pitch. However, the tinges of green on the track did not make the ball come on to the bat faster.

Ben Hilfenhaus found some early swing to work in his favour and both he and Doug Bollinger mixed up length and full-pitched deliveries with the occasional short ball, and that brought them early wickets.

The slower bowlers then built on that platform, capitalising on the fact that the ball appeared to come a touch slower off the pitch. Xavier Doherty struck with the first ball he bowled, getting rid of James Franklin, and as the scoring rate was stifled, Tridents had just Jonathan Carter in the middle to steer the innings.

The batsman, who had struck a brisk century in his last match, had a quiet start before opening up to cart sixes and fours off Malik, Doherty and Bollinger in successive overs. Doherty, however, got his wicket as the innings moved into its last phase, draining all momentum.

Had Carter stayed at the crease for a little longer, Tridents would have had a more competitive total to defend but the bowlers fought scrappily despite the low score. 

Hurricanes' reply, by any stretch, was not a smooth batting effort but Tridents contributed to their own problems by dropping chances. Aiden Blizzard had two reprieves off an accurate Ravi Rampaul while Tim Paine had one - had those been taken, the target of 114 would have looked tougher for the Australian side.

In the midst of this, Malik's innings stood out for his composure and skill at manoeuvring the ball. The risky shots were eschewed, but he found the singles and twos easily, eventually closing the match out with successive fours in the 19th over. 

CLT20 Games 14+15

Lahore Lions 164 for 5 (U Akmal 73*, Nasim 43, Frylinck 3-22) beat Dolphins 148 for 9 (Frylinck 63*, Hafeez 2-18) by 16 runs

Robbie Frylinck's all-round display was not enough to stop Dolphins from becoming the first side to be knocked out of the tournament in a game that looked a lot closer in the end than it actually was. Frylinck was solely responsible for that deception, as he blitzed an incredible, unbeaten 63 off 27 deliveries after Dolphins had crumbled to 93 for 9 against the Lahore Lions spinners in a chase of 165.

Dolphins had earlier let Lions recover from 34 for 4 to 164 for 5 on an unusually slow and turning Bangalore surface. Umar Akmal was the architect of the recovery with an unbeaten 73 off 45, and Saad Nasim's 43 off 26 was a worthy support act. 

The pair added 92 in under nine overs, after which Mohammad Hafeez let loose his army of spinners on the Dolphins batsmen, who tried to slog their way out of cluelessness and only managed to get themselves out. 

It was Frylinck doing early damage with the ball too after Lions chose to bat. Offering no pace with his cutters, he claimed Ahmed Shehzad and Nasir Jamshed in his first two overs. When Hafeez too succumbed to the lack of pace as he played on off Cameron Delport, Lions were down to 34 for 4, and it was already the eighth over.

Akmal adapted superbly to the conditions. He played square only when he had width, and made sure he picked the gaps when he did so. When he hit, he mostly lofted straight. He was put down by the wicketkeeper Morne van Wyk off Prenelan Subrayen when he was on 20 off 19, and took 53 off the next 26.

The very next over after being reprieved, he lofted the left-arm spin of Keshav Maharaj for a couple of sixes, and then cut and pulled Andile Phehlukwayo's short ones for three boundaries.

Nasim played an intelligent knock, making sure he put the bad deliveries away. When Subrayen bowled his offspin without a deep midwicket, Nasim, deposited him for successive sixes over the same region. 

While Lions prospered against spin, Dolphins capitulated. Barring van Wyk and Jonathan Vandiar, none of the top seven seemed keen to bat with sense. 

Even as van Wyk kept finding the boundary with ease, his partners kept throwing their wickets away. Van Wyk could not keep a cut down off Nasim on 36 while Vandiar holed out in the deep for 29.

It was free-fall for the rest, and Dolphins' discomfort was so obvious that till 14 overs, Hafeez had used only two of his pacers. 

When he did bring back Wahab Riaz and Aizaz Cheema, Frylinck set about them in a stunning display of power-hitting. Riaz was taken for three successive fours in the 17th while Cheema was dismissed for four sixes over long-on in the 18th.

With 31 needed off 12 now, Hafeez went back to spin, and Frylinck was unable to take more than a four off Mustafa Iqbal in the 19th. Last man Subrayen consumed the first two balls each of the last two overs, and Frylinck could not do an encore against Riaz with four successive sixes needed to take it to a Super Over. 

Chennai Super Kings 155 for 6 (Jadeja 44*, Dhoni 35) beat Perth Scorchers 142 for 7 (Coulter-Nile 30, Ashwin 3-20) by 13 runs

Having made a slow start on a slow Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch, a late-overs blitz from Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni muscled Chennai Super Kings to what proved an amply defendable target, and moved the team a step closer to a semifinal spot. 

From 69 for 4 at the end of the 14th over, Super Kings more than doubled their score, clouting 86 runs off a ragged Perth Scorchers attack in their last six overs.

That point on, there were no more swings in momentum. From the moment Craig Simmons under-edged a slog into Dhoni's gloves in the third over of Scorchers' chase, wickets fell regularly. With dew barely making an appearance under the lights, the pitch remained sluggish, and the scoring rate was somnolent.

Scorchers made 35 in the Powerplay overs, and were still going along at under six an over at the 10-over mark. By then, they had lost Mitchell Marsh, probably the batsman Super Kings feared the most in the line-up. 

Having been caught behind off a no-ball in the ninth over, he top-edged a sweep against R Ashwin in the tenth, holing out at deep square leg.

Scorchers had beaten Dolphins in their first match of the tournament courtesy Marsh, who had struck back-to-back sixes when 12 had been required off the last two balls of their run-chase. 

The only glimmer that Scorchers would be able to force a similar finish came when Ashton Turner and Nathan Coulter-Nile added 50 for the sixth wicket in 33 balls, leaving them needing 33 from 13 balls, but Turner was run-out trying to sneak a bye, and Mohit Sharma and Dwayne Bravo sealed a comfortable win for Super Kings with their slower balls in the last two overs. 

For most part, Super Kings' batsmen had struggled just as much after they were sent in by Adam Voges, the Scorchers captain. The dismissals of their openers - Brendon McCullum chopping Joel Paris on, Dwayne Smith slogging across the line of a slower ball - spoke of their difficulty in coming to terms with the pitch, and the loss of Suresh Raina to a run-out sucked out even more momentum.

The spinners tied down Mithun Manhas and Dwayne Bravo, and Brad Hogg looked particularly difficult to get away, with the batsmen straining to pick his variations, and the pair added 23 in 34 painstaking deliveries. 

Jadeja's entry, following Manhas' dismissal in the 12th over, didn't immediately spark Super Kings to life: their boundary drought, which began early in the sixth over, lasted till Bravo swung Turner away over the midwicket boundary off the first ball of the 15th over. He lofted him down the ground for four and was bowled immediately after, but those two big blows signaled the start of Super Kings' revival.

Dhoni swatted an Arafat full-toss away for a big six over the leg side in the 17th over and Hogg, who had seemed unhittable till then, went for 14 in his final over, as Jadeja charged him and swung him over long-off and wide of long-on for a four and a six.

Super Kings' run-rate, though, was still under six an over, and it took a truly gargantuan over for 150 to even become a speck on the horizon. It came off the bowling of Arafat, who lost his length and lost the plot. Twenty six came off the over, the last three balls of which Dhoni sent sailing over the leg side boundary. 

The second of these sixes disappeared over the roof of the stadium and the word 'immeasurable' appeared on the big screen. The person keying in the text was referring to the distance of the hit; he or she might as well have been talking about its game-changing impact. 

CLT20 Games 12+13

Kings XI Punjab 215 for 5 (Vohra 65, Sehwag 52, Miller 40*) beat Northern Knights 95 (Karanveer 4-15) by 120 runs

If you wanted to see how diverse Twenty20 games get, you should have got yourself a ticket to the double-header in Mohali on Friday. First the Barbados Tridents and Cape Cobras played out a Super Over thriller, after which Kings XI Punjab walloped Northern Knights by 120 runs - the biggest win in six seasons of the CLT20 - to storm into the semi-finals.

Kings XI lived up to their billing as a bunch of power-hitters as batsman after batsman clouted boundary after boundary to run up a total of 215. The openers Manan Vohra and Virender Sehwag set the tone with a high-octane 102-run stand, with David Miller rounding off the innings with an 18-ball 40. Knights' biggest strength was their new-ball opening pair, but Trent Boult and Tim Southee had combined figures of 8-0-93-0 on the day.

In the face of a massive target, Knights' batting rolled over for 95. Only someone desperate to "take the positive out of it" would point to it being a marginal improvement over the 92 Knights folded for in their previous game. Knights captain Daniel Flynn was more forthright, "We got found out today," was his assessment.

At no stage of the game were Kings XI second best. Ever since he got his chance midway through the IPL season, Vohra has shown he isn't fazed by the quality of the opposition bowlers, backing his made-for-Twenty20 batting. Today was no different, as he began with successive boundaries in the first over against Boult. Southee also got the treatment in the fifth over, with three fours, as Vohra outpaced Sehwag and Kings XI's run-rate never dipped below 10.

Sehwag revealed he had promised to give Vohra one of his bats if the 21-year-old hit a century. Vohra was zooming towards the mark, with consecutive sixes off Ish Sodhi taking him to 65 as early as the ninth over. The third ball was short, and seemed set to go over the rope once more, but Vohra picked out deep midwicket. After the game, Sehwag hoped Vohra would get the bat next match.

There was a brief lull after that wicket, but Sehwag powered on to his half-century before Miller took over. He caned Scott Styris for 19 in the penultimate over to bring up the 200 as Kings XI showed that even with Glenn Maxwell, Thisara Perera and George Bailey only making small contributions they could still post a mammoth total. "We ticked off the KPIs (key performance indicators) as a batting group," Bailey said.

Knights never looked like they had the necessary firepower for the chase, even with the inclusion of an extra batsman in Daniel Harris. What slim chances they had began even slimmer, once Kane Williamson departed attempting a ramp shot, and Anton Devcich holed out attempting a reverse-sweep. Maxwell's direct hit caught out the experienced Styris, before the spinners took over on a surface providing them a little help. 

Legspinner Karanveer Singh picked up four as Knights' lower order keeled over without a fight, leaving them with a horrendous net run-rate which virtually rules them out of the semi-final race. 

Barbados Tridents 174 for 8 (Cartner 111*) tied with Cape Cobras 174 for 5 (Amla 59, Mendis 4-27) Cape Cobras won the one-over eliminator

It was the second time Jonathan Carter was sprawled on his knees in Mohali. He hammered his bat into the turf and flung his head down in agony. The Cape Cobras were lined up beside him, having broken free from their celebratory hugs, to pat his back.

Carter had bludgeoned his way to a maiden T20 century, but his team-mates toppled around him. Still Barbados Tridents had managed a total of 174. Their bowlers rallied to enforce a Super Over and it was down to Carter again with four needed of the last ball. 

A last ball that was a full toss. A full toss bowled by little-known offspinner Sybrand Engelbrecht. But when Carter needed his power the most, it was nowhere to be found as an inside edge dribbled away behind the keeper and Barbados Tridents had lost.

While he was swallowed in grief, Cobras' dressing room erupted. Had they lost this game, they would have been out of the CLT20.

There were seven single-figure scores strewn amid Carter's effort. The Tridents suffered two early jolts and their run-rate was below six by the end of the Powerplay. That lack of foundation meant every bottom-handed bludgeon from Carter was highly necessary. 

Many times, he looked set to swing himself off his feet, the bat swirling back towards the base of his spine during the follow through. The straight boundary received significant attention, as he razed 58 of his runs in the V, including all five of his sixes. He gave the run-rate a much needed boost. He offset the loss of a few late wickets, and his unbeaten 111 was nearly 64% of the Tridents' eventual 174 for 8.

However, the desperation he showed with the bat took a long while to match. Cape Cobras had the luxury of a Richard Levi blitz as a precursor to a Hashim Amla fifty that was dragging the match away. Tridents needed a stranglehold with the required rate a manageable 8.33 in the final six overs.

Jeevan Mendis' canny leg spin provided just that. Three wickets across eight of his deliveries, followed by a stellar 19th over from Ravi Rampaul complicated the chase enough to push the match into a Super Over. That penultimate over cost only five runs and primed Rampaul to the responsibility of bowling that Super Over. 

The burden suited Rampaul well, as he rarely erred in finding the leg-stump yorker during the Super Over. There of them hit their marks, but Levi and Dane Vilas managed to string together 11 runs.

The responsibility of defending that fell on Engelbrecht. Cobras had decided pace off the ball was their best chance. But offspinner Dane Piedt was injured and Robin Peterson's left-arm spin can often be a lottery. So Engelbrecht, who's acclaim as a fielder outstrips his skills with the ball, was tossed the ball. Carter managed a flat-batted thump to the long-off boundary that had Dilshan Munaweera, who's 42 was the next best effort in their innings, skipping. Tridents needed seven from four.

However, Engelbrecht kept bowling slow. He kept forcing the batsmen to reach outside off and finally stymied Carter on leg stump to steal the game. Something he enjoyed quite a bit considering the way he took off running. It was the first Super Over game he was involved in. It was the first Super Over he has ever bowled. It was a gamble from acting captain Vilas. It worked. 

CLT20 Game 11 CSK v Lahore Lions (Abandoned)

CSK v Lahore Lions - Match abandoned without a ball bowled

A persistent downpour in Bangalore forced the match between Chennai Super Kings and Lahore Lions to be called off without even the toss having taken place. 

Rain had been around in the lead-up to the match, but the players were briefly able to get out for their warm-ups around 15 minutes before the scheduled toss time. However, the rain returned with intensity, and about an hour after the scheduled start of 8 pm, the game was abandoned with large puddles of water on the outfield.

Lions got on the board with two points for the washout and Super Kings went second behind Kolkata Knight Riders with six. Knight Riders have already qualified for the semi-finals. 

Super Kings have a game left against Perth Scorchers while Lions have two matches against Dolphins and Scorchers. 

CLT20 Game 10 KKR v Perth Scorchers

Kolkata Knight Riders 153 for 7 (Suryakumar 43*, Arafat 3-39) beat Perth Scorchers 151 for 7 (Voges 71*, Narine 4-31, Kuldeep 3-24) by three wickets

Kolkata Knight Riders have developed a knack of pulling off the clinical and the haphazard on the same night. Led by Sunil Narine, their spinners were un-hittable. Perth Scorchers realised that after much huffing and puffing that amounted to only 151 for 7. The Knight Riders batsmen though were lackadaisical and Scorchers' seamers rode on that, until they met Suryakumar Yadav. His twin sixes in the 19th over killed the contest and sealed Knight Riders' progress into the Champions League T20 semi-finals.

Kuldeep Yadav, the 19-year old left-arm chinaman, and Narine would have been in the dugout wondering if the clincher would be their batting and not them snaring all seven of the opposition's wickets to fall, at 6.88 to the over. 

Scorchers' captain Adam Voges had highlighted the need to collect singles against mystery bowlers, but only he managed to stick to the plan. While the rest of the line-up swished and swashed across the line, he accumulated an unbeaten 71 off 52 balls that looked surprisingly close to match-winning until the final few minutes of the game.

Two sixes in the 15th over sparked Suryakumar's innings off and two similar blows crowned a 19-ball 43. So Knight Riders pushed their winning streak to 12 matches despite losing regular wickets and finding themselves at 87 for 5. Gautam Gambhir, their captain, too found an explanation hard to come by for their victorious run. "I don't know, the only thing I can think of was the hunger in the dressing room."

While that hunger forced their batsmen to search for too much too quickly - Gambhir sliced to point, Robin Uthappa top-edged a pull off a bouncer that had him cramped up, Kallis flicked a poor ball off his pads into the hands of short fine leg and Manish Pandey sought to dab a yorker to third man to terrible effect - the Knight Riders bowlers found excellent use for it.

Scorchers were struggling to pick Kuldeep's googlies and Narine's carom balls. The overs were piling up and instinct forced them to slog across the line. 

Mitchell Marsh was comfortably stumped, Sam Whiteman was caught in the deep after a flurry, Nathan Coulter-Nile wound up off his first ball to present a top-edge to Kuldeep and Ashton Agar played all around a straighter ball from Narine. Ashton Turner provided a repeat of that dismissal. Scorchers fumbled from a promising 120 for 2 to 132 for 6 in two overs.

But Voges fought on using the depth of the crease quite well. From that perch he was able to get better mileage on pulls. When he left the crease he was conscious of hitting straight. But he was the only batsman who looked in any kind of control. Gambhir could sense that tension and flooded the innings with spin. Narine took over in the death and for a second match in succession was on a hat-trick. It was one-way traffic, as Narine collected a ninth four-wicket haul in T20s, the most by any bowler.

A similar narrative worked for Scorchers, but it was the seamers that posed their threat. They claimed early wickets, allowed no partnership to reach the 40s and were resilient in the field. Even in the dying stages of the match Yasir Arafat produced a beautiful slower ball to wreck Andre Russell's stumps, but five runs to defend in the final over was too tall a task. 

CLT20 Game 9 Hobart Hurricanes v Northern Knights

Hobart Hurricanes 178 for 3 (Blizzard 62, Malik 45*) beat Northern Knights 92 (Styris 37, Hilfenhaus 3-14, Bollinger 3-22) by 86 runs

A calculated performance with the bat and ball helped Hobart Hurricanes rout Northern Knights by 86 runs in Raipur, keeping their chances of taking a knock-out spot alive.

While Knights' decision to bowl first after winning the toss seemed to have provided them with an advantage - given their recent form and knowledge of conditions in Raipur - Hurricanes made it work in their favour with key contributions from Tim Paine, Aiden Blizzard and Shoaib Malik. Blizzard and Malik added 100 runs for the third wicket and combined the dexterity of their strokeplay with smart batting in dew-heavy conditions to propel Hurricanes to 178 for 3.

Tim Southee and Trent Boult have been one of the most successful new-ball pairs in the tournament so far. Prior to this game, the pair had 13 wickets between them at less than 10 runs apiece but the rest of the Knights bowling line-up had not quite matched them effectively.

Five overs into their innings, Hurricanes appeared to be in a rut but Paine switched gears dramatically once the threat of Southee and Boult had been dealt with and the likes of Scott Kuggeleijn, Ish Sodhi and Jono Boult stepped in. Where the first five overs of the innings had seen the Hurricanes hobble to 20 for 1, the next five saw them accumulate 45 swift runs to quickly catch up with a healthy scoring rate.

Dew became an important factor as the game progressed and with the Knights bowlers struggling for grip and control, it became easier for Malik and Blizzard to build on Paine's efforts.

As in the game against Cape Cobras, Aiden Blizzard was the lucky recipient of a reprieve, this time from Sodhi who failed to hold on to a caught-and-bowled chance. Blizzard was on 2 off 3 balls and he took his time settling into the partnership, allowing Malik to steer the innings initially. 

The second half of their century stand - which came off 50 balls - had Blizzard pulling out the shots, and he stormed to his fifth T20 fifty during an over in which he stroked five fours off Trent Boult. By the time Boult and Southee returned to the attack, towards the end of the innings, there was little they could do to stop Hurricanes from amassing 76 off the last five overs.

While Blizzard spent some time settling down at the crease, Malik kept the innings going with deft footwork and quick wrists. The batsman had had a disappointing run with Hurricanes, but the form that had made him one of the top run-getters in the recent Caribbean Premier League came to the fore as he carved boundaries square on either side of the wicket and in the third-man region.

Hurricanes' bowling strategy paid off equally well as they opened the bowling with Ben Hilfenhaus and Joe Mennie. The ground staff in Raipur had worked hard to remove some of the dew during the innings break and it was imperative for Hurricanes to get the early wickets, to break into a middle order of a line-up that had been largely bolstered by the form of its top order. Mennie, in his third game for the side, provided the first breakthrough and he had some help from Ben Laughlin who pulled off an astonishing catch at point.

Then Hilfenhaus rattled the Knights chase, striking twice in an over to remove Kane Williamson - out playing a slog - and Daniel Flynn. A couple of overs later, BJ Watling missed a full toss and was adjudged lbw and despite Styris' efforts at stitching together partnerships, the team couldn't recover from a position of 19 for 4. 

Hilfenhaus finished with his best T20 figures of 3 for 14, while Mennie, Xavier Doherty and Doug Bollinger also chipped in with wickets. Styris became the second allrounder, after Kieron Pollard, to score more than 4000 runs and take more than 100 wickets in T20s during his 27-ball 37 and that perhaps was the brightest spark on an otherwise disappointing day for Knights. 

CLT20 Game 8 CSK v Dolphins

Chennai Super Kings 242 for 6 (Raina 90, McCullum 49, Jadeja 40*) beat Dolphins 188 (Chetty 38, Mohit 4-41, Bravo 2-17) by 54 runs

A stunning 43-ball 90 from Suresh Raina was the cornerstone of Chennai Super Kings' 54-run win over Dolphins in Bangalore but the contest, at least for the early part of the Dolphins chase, was far more closely matched than the eventual victory margin suggested.

Dolphins captain Morne van Wyk had opted to bowl and said his decision had been influenced by the reputation the Chinnaswamy Stadium had for aiding sides batting second. For 20 overs of Super Kings' innings, however, van Wyk could only watch from behind the stumps as Raina, Brendon McCullum, Faf du Plessis and Ravindra Jadeja plundered runs at will, powering Super Kings to 242 for 6.

The Dolphins response was equally explosive at the start. Van Wyk and Cameron Delport raised the side's 50 in 15 balls. By the end of the Powerplay, Dolphins had raced to 85 for 2, bettering the CLT20 record set by Super Kings earlier in the day. 

As is typical in big chases, the breakthroughs came when the Dolphins batsmen kept playing for the big shots, but they were also left to rue a poor decision from umpire K Srinath, who adjudged Van Wyk lbw when a ball from R Ashwin had pitched several inches outside leg stump. The dismissal came in an over where the Dolphins captain had smacked two fours and a six off the bowler.

After van Wyk was dismissed, Dolphins' hopes rested on Delport who swung and swiped his way to a nine-ball 34. All but two of the deliveries he faced had raced to the boundary and his bustling innings had threatened to play out the same way as Andre Russell's a few days ago before Mohit Sharma ended it with a slower ball.

After Delport was out, the pressure of keeping pace with a spiraling asking rate was squarely on Cody Chetty. He tried with a gamely 37 off 28 balls but his dismissal gave Super Kings an opening to stifle the scoring rate for a couple of overs and the bowlers responded. The target left Dolphins with no room for quiet overs and when those did come, especially during Bravo's tight spell filled with variations of slower balls, whatever little hope they had left slipped away quickly.

In sharp contrast, unburdened by a target hanging over them, the Super Kings innings motored along at top speed. MS Dhoni had some concerns at the toss about how the track would behave due to the presence of a few patches but there was little to worry about for Super Kings once they began. After Dwayne Smith fell early to the left-arm spin of Keshav Maharaj, Raina and McCullum set about dismantling the Dolphins attack, matching each other almost stroke for stroke during a relentless 91-run stand that came off 45 balls.

The Dolphin pacers, including Kyle Abbott, had few answers to the fearsome shots McCullum unleashed either side of the wicket, harking back in some ways to the whirlwind century he played during the first game of the Indian Premier League.

The pair led Super Kings to the second-best Powerplay score of the season, smashing 70 in the first six overs. Raina got off the mark with a four and after that, kept carving out sixes effortlessly. The scoring rate barely suffered a hiccup when McCullum was out for 49 - caught at deep midwicket off a mis-timed shot - as Raina took over the lead role. He marched to a fifty off 27 balls and in a third-wicket partnership of 65 with du Plessis, contributed 53 runs.

The gaps between the landmarks showed how effectively Super Kings had negated the Dolphins attack as the side progressed to 50 to 100 and 150 in 25, 28 and 26 balls, respectively. Sixty-four of Raina's 90 runs came in boundaries and by the time his top edge settled in Delport's hands at point, Raina had become the first Indian batsman to move past 5000 runs in T20s and was one short of 200 sixes in the format.

Dolphins' relief over quick wickets at the end was also short-lived as Jadeja smashed 40 off 14 balls to produce a big flourish. Abbott came back and bowled a couple of quiet overs but by then the total had swelled to 242, equalling the tournament record set by Otago Volts last season. 

CLT20 Games 6+7

Hobart Hurricanes 186 for 4 (Blizzard 78*, Dunk 54, Engelbrecht 3-20) beat Cape Cobras 184 for 6 (Levi 42, Philander 32*) by six wickets

The romance of T20 cricket is that one ball can change the game. Cobras were reminded of it in gruesome fashion in the 18th over. Their lead bowler Vernon Philander had routed Hobart Hurricanes' final hope when he had Aiden Blizzard caught on the long-on boundary, and it did not augur well for the chase that a new batsman had to come in with an equation of 38 off 17 balls. Blizzard was walking off the field when he was asked to wait; the umpires wanted to double-check the legality of the ball. The replay gutted Cobras - Philander had overstepped.

Blizzard had reached his fifty off the previous delivery, and he feasted on the free-hit - that monstrous six over square leg was part of a 24-run over. A match that had slowly been tipping into the Cobras' hands was wrested away and Hurricanes hurtled to victory with one over to spare.

Philander was completely thrown. He dished out length balls and worse full tosses to be carted for two fours and two sixes in seven deliveries. Philander had caused confusion among the Hurricanes' bowlers when Cobras batted, and had been a vital cog in a seventh-wicket partnership that razed 52 runs in four overs and inflated the target to 185. Memories of his 32 off 14 evaporated, however, as Blizzard reaped his luck to take 26 runs off eight balls to finish unbeaten on 78 off 48.

Both teams were pleased with the pitch at the start of the game. Hurricanes captain Tim Paine said it looked "terrific"; his Cobras counterpart Justin Ontong foresaw some turn and loaded his side with an extra spinner. Dane Piedt's impact was minimal though as he injured his right arm but the other change, Sybrand Engelbrecht, thrived. 

The slower he bowled, the more difficult it got for Hurricanes. By the end of Engelbrecht's spell - 4-0-20-3 - the equation was 60 off 30 balls. Charl Langeveldt, who reversed his retirement for this tournament, compounded that with a terrific 17th over that yielded only six runs - one of which was a tight wide call.

Blizzard was saddled with a required rate that was inching to 15. He had used pure power to fuel his innings and the ploy hadn't been as effective when the bowlers opted to change their pace. His tally against spin was 29 off 27. But the situation empowered him to continue and Cobras helped him by feeding him pace and worse, at the exact length a batsman would like. His innings overshadowed another half-century at the top of the order. Ben Dunk had accumulated 41 of the 51-run opening stand.

At that stage, the chase looked perfectly on course. Cobras' 62 runs in their Powerplay was the best in this CLT20. Hurricanes missed that by only three runs. Cobras edged ahead during a tight middle-overs period in the Hurricanes' innings - only 47 runs came between the ninth and the 15th and there were three wickets as well.

But in the end they were disconsolate and in disbelief. They were still without points despite a blitz from Richard Levi, who offset the early dismissal of Hashim Amla with a typically muscular 42 off 30. The Hurricanes' bowlers took their time recognising the impact of changing their pace. They had tested the pitch with Xavier Doherty in the third over. In the fifth, he beat Levi's outside edge but the batsman hit back with two successive fours.

Eventually they caught on with Ben Laughlin showing off different variations of his slower ball to pick up 2 for 31. Levi's dismissal in the 10th over helped, but just as the innings seemed to be meandering, Robin Peterson's unorthodoxy and Philander peppering the straight boundary revived them. However, Philander's luck ran out when it was time to bowl.


Kolkata Knight Riders 153 for 6 (Gambhir 60, Uthappa 46) beat Lahore Lions 151 for 7 (Shehzad 59, Akmal 40, Narine 3-9) by four wickets

Kolkata Knight Riders' four-wicket victory over Lahore Lions followed the template that has largely been the basis of their 11-game winning run: bowl first, then Sunil Narine and the other spinners smother the opposition, before Robin Uthappa and the rest of top order click to set up the chase of a lightweight target.

The match will be remembered, if at all, for the abysmal fielding. The sheer number of catches put down, stumpings missed and regulation stops messed up was astonishing. Narine, though, turned in another world-class bowling performance which underlined his reputation as the best in the business in Twenty20s, and 19-year-old chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav added to the buzz about him with a stirring effort to stifle Lions.

Lions' best phase of the game was the opening Powerplay, when Ahmed Shehzad struck some big hits down the ground to push the score to 47 for 0. This despite Narine being turned to as early as the fifth over, and Narine responding with a maiden. A stunning direct hit from Andre Russell broke the opening stand in the seventh over, by when the wicketkeeper Manvinder Bisla had already mucked up two straightforward stumpings. 

The Knight Riders' spinners took charge in the middle overs, with Kuldeep showing solid control for a wrist-spinner, getting his stock ball to turn plenty and using the wrong 'un to confuse the batsmen. Mohammad Hafeez spent much of his short innings trying to heave the ball to midwicket before he became Kuldeep's first victim, holing out for 9.

When Shehzad found Uthappa at long-off in the 13th over to finish on a chancy 59, Lions' top-heavy batting was in trouble, especially with three Narine overs to come. 

The trepidation of the lesser lights in the batting line-up was obvious when they faced Narine: Saad Nasim missed his first ball and edged his second to short cover, Umar Siddiq lasted one more before being done in by the quicker one, and Asif Raza was bowled first ball. Narine nearly had a hat-trick, but Wahab Riaz had his boot back in the crease before Bisla could break the stumps.

Umar Akmal was still there, though, and he clobbered Piyush Chawla and Pat Cummins to lift Lions past 150.

Gautam Gambhir and Uthappa, aided by some comically inept fielding, put on a century stand to set Knight Riders on course for victory. They were coasting for a large part of the chase before a slew of wickets towards the end briefly made things tight, only for Suryakumar Yadav to finish it off with a five-ball 14. 

CLT20 Games 4+5

Perth Scorchers 165 for 4 (Simmons 48, Whiteman 45, Marsh 40*) beat Dolphins 164 for 7 (Zondo 63*, Behrendorff 3-46) by six wickets

On February 7, in the final of the Big Bash League, Mitchell Marsh smashed a 12-ball 37 to take Perth Scorchers from 144 for 3 in the end of the 17th over to a 20-over total of 191 for 4. Scorchers won the match by 39 runs. Two days later in the final of the Ram Slam T20 Challenge, Robbie Frylinck defended 14 runs off the last over to win the match for Dolphins.

When Scorchers met Dolphins in the Champions League, the two matchwinners in their respective domestic finals faced off. With Marsh on strike in the final over Scorchers needed 16 to win. Frylinck, attacking the blockhole remorselessly, had conceded only 16 in his first three overs.

For the first four balls, Frylinck's length was un-hittable. Scorchers scored only four runs, and lost Ashton Agar, who simply couldn't get any elevation on his attempted lap over short fine leg. Fifth ball, the pressure told on the bowler. Marsh came down the track, and out came a waist-high full-toss that disappeared over the leg-side boundary. It could have been called a no-ball, but the umpires - S Ravi and Rod Tucker - let it go.

Six from one, then. Frylinck searched for the yorker, and bowled a low full-toss. Marsh got under it and struck it so cleanly that he was running back to his team's dugout, bat aloft, even before the ball had cleared the boundary. With a combination of tight bowling from Frylinck and Kyle Abbott and a lack of fluency with the bat, Scorchers had come close to losing the match despite losing only four wickets in a chase of 165. Thanks to Marsh, they had squeaked over the line in an exciting finish that made up for some fairly tedious cricket till that point.

Craig Simmons, opening for Scorchers, had struggled to time his leg-side heaves, but had managed to keep the chase going at a decent run-rate with a 36-ball 48. 

Sam Whiteman had been a little more fluent on his way to a 32-ball 45, lap-sweeping and driving inside-out through cover. They put on 55 for the second wicket at close to nine-and-a-half an over, but the partnership had begun with Scorchers on the back foot, having scored only 14 in their first four overs for the loss of Adam Voges.

Scorchers were still behind the required rate when Whiteman holed out in the 16th over, and Marsh - on 12 off 14 at that point - and new man Ashton Agar were left needing to score 47 from 25 balls. With a mixture of decent placement down the ground and luck - Agar was dropped in the covers in the 18th over, and he found the third-man boundary via the outside edge off Abbott - they kept Scorchers in the hunt, but it still required a couple of nervy full-tosses and nerveless hits to take them over the line.

Batting first, Dolphins were three down inside two overs, with Morne van Wyk, Cody Chetty and Delport discovering the pitfalls of slogging across the line against the left-arm swing of Joel Paris and Jason Behrendorff. But they continued to go after the bowling. Khaya Zondo played himself in at one end, while Keshav Maharaj and Daryn Smit played their shots.

The run-rate, as a result, kept them in the hunt for a biggish total, but they kept losing wickets. Dolphins were 46 for 4 at the end of the Powerplay overs, and 77 for 5 after 10. 

They lost two more wickets by the 15th over, but by then Zondo had clicked into gear, taking guard outside leg stump or outside off to throw the bowlers off their lines, and pulling with authority whenever they dropped short. With Andile Phehlukwayo and Rob Frylinck demonstrating Dolphins' much-talked-about batting depth, 46 came off the last four overs, and Dolphins looked to have put their poor start behind them.

Kings XI Punjab 178 for 6 (Miller 46*) beat v Barbados Tridents 174 for 6 (Reifer 60*, Munaweera 50, Awana 3-46) by four wickets

The Kings XI Punjab production line of batsmen was under threat of being shortcircuited again. But Akshar Patel strode in at No. 8 and clobbered 20 runs off the penultimate over to script a second successive victory in Mohali. The situation had not been too dire, but that cameo erased all doubts of the outcome of the match. Barbados Tridents, as their coach Desmond Haynes said, fought fire with fire when they amassed 174, but their bowling in the death could not keep to their disciplines.

Things had looked promising for Tridents when they got rid of Virender Sehwag and Glenn Maxwell in the space of 12 balls. Losing that much batting muscle with eight overs left and a run-rate climbing towards nine an over is never healthy. Unless you are Kings XI.

David Miller played an innings that didn't quite exemplify his 'in the arc out of the park' though philosophy. 

He brushed past a few nervous moments against spin when Jeevan Mendis benefited from uncertain bounce. His timing was inconsistent, but found the boundary when needed most. Ashley Nurse was cracked for a six off the final ball of the 17th over. The equation reduced to 34 off 18. The last ball of the next one hurtled to the midwicket boundary to take it down to the wire. Kings XI needed 25 off 12 now. And then Akshar's carnage began.

Ravi Rampaul was belted to long-on, lofted over cover and hooked over the square leg boundary. In between there was outside edge to the third man boundary added to the excitement. Rampaul was Tridents' most experienced bowler. He had leaked 50 off his four overs. Akshar was the youngest player of the Kings XI side. He bashed 23 off only nine balls.

Rayad Emrit, the Tridents captain, had said he would have taken an equation of 20-odd in the final two overs. But his bowlers did not log enough time searching for the blockhole. The only potent threat was the legspinner Mendis who snared alarming turn on occasion and enjoyed low bounce on others to cede only 18 runs for two key wickets: Sehwag who had fueling a strong Kings XI start and George Bailey, the captain. Kings XI needed 47 off the final four overs. They got 50 off 3.4.

Bowling had seemed Tridents' strength coming into the tournament after losing Shoaib Malik, Dwayne Smith and Kieron Pollard. But this game forced that impression topsy-turvy.

Dilshan Munaweera, the Sri Lanka batsman, hammered 50 of his team's 61 during the powerplay. There were slugs down the ground, scoops behind the wicket, drills over and through cover to keep up a frenetic pace. He wasn't able to sustain it past the powerplay though. But the foundation had been laid.

Raymon Reifer bashed an unbeaten 60 off 42 balls. He used proactive footwork to find his power, coming down the track and muscling the ball thereon. He carted 40 of his runs from 26 balls off the spinners, who assisted his strokeplay by resorting to darts whenever they were attacked.

Kings XI's bowling was the weaker link, but they could lay claim to being caught by surprise - Munaweera's T20 strike rate before this game was 116. Reifer has only played six games across two seasons of CPL. Tridents though knew who they had at the crease and their dug out was buzzing throughout their batting innings. It wasn't a few hours on. 

CLT20 Game 3 Northern Knights v Cape Cobras

Northern Knights 206 for 5 (Williamson 101*, Devcich 67) beat Cobras 44 for 2 by 33 runs (D/L method)

In most Twenty20 matches, the brevity of the format allows teams a chance to mount a comeback even if the scorecard makes for grim reading. This did not seem like one of those matches. Kane Williamson showed off his increasing proficiency in the format with a maiden T20 century to lead Northern Knights to their highest score, and Trent Boult and Tim Southee underlined their customary threat with the new ball to leave Cobras on the mat. 

By the time the rain came down in the eighth over of the chase, the asking rate was nearing 13 and saved Cobras from what was shaping to be an hour of minimising the margin of defeat.

At the start of the year, Williamson was not seen as someone who could play Twenty20s. 

Everything about him seemed old-school, from the manner in which he batted - lacking the glamorous mega hits the fans and the format loves - to the way in which he celebrated his centuries - with a mild wave of the bat. He hadn't played a single game in the format in all of 2013.

In 2014, though, he has been immense in Twenty20s, averaging over 40, striking at 137, and almost doubling his aggregate in the format. 

In Raipur, he showed how versatile his game is. His first 15 runs all came behind the wicket as he used the pace of the bowlers. He picked off four successive twos in the fourth over, nudging the ball in the gaps and running hard to signal a shift in momentum after a tight start from Cobras bowlers.

There had been plenty of close calls for both him and opening partner Anton Devcich early on: in the first over itself, there was a mix-up and Williamson was nearly run-out; in the second, there was an unintentional four for him to third man as he was late in leaving the ball; in the third, Devcich just beat the throw from point; in the fourth, a Williamson top edge flew for six over fine leg; in the fifth, Devcich was reprieved at short fine leg by Justin Kemp, who hurt his hand attempting a low catch.

Williamson and Devcich capitalised on that fortune to build a 140-run stand at more than 10 an over. Williamson was superb at placing the ball behind the stumps, and used the inside-out chip to good effect, while Devcich unveiled a series of sweeps and reverse-sweeps. 

The acceleration came in the middle of the innings, with 74 runs arriving in a five-over spell - there was also a 37-ball sequence in which there was only one dot delivery. The next scoreless ball was in the 14th over when Devcich was run out.

Daniel Flynn followed for a duck, but BJ Watling kept the frenetic pace up with a 20-ball cameo in which he feasted on Kemp. Williamson was muscling the ball around by this stage, including a powerful hit to cow corner for six off Rory Kleinveldt.

Charl Langeveldt, who hasn't played a competitive game in nearly a year, delivered several yorkers to stifle the runs and for a brief while it seemed as though Williamson might struggle to reach his hundred. He got there in grand style, though, with a stunning shot that sailed over cover for six even though he was flopping over towards the leg side. That also took Knights beyond 200, to a score that looked beyond Cobras' reach.

A full-strength Cobras line-up would have had Dale Steyn, Sunil Narine and the Ram Slam's most successive bowler, Beuran Hendricks. Instead, a severely weakened Cobras were taken apart by a team that had already played three matches at the same venue. 

CLT20 Game 2 KXIP v Hobart Hurricanes (Thurs)

Kings XI Punjab 146 for 5 (Maxwell 43, Perera 35*, Bailey 34*) beat Hobart Hurricanes 144 for 6 (Birt 28, Wells 28, Perera 2-17) by five wickets

The loss of Mitchell Johnson to a rib injury had left Kings XI Punjab's bowling looking a little suspect ahead of their Champions T20 opener, but it proved a bit of a blessing in disguise for them, with his replacement playing a crucial hand in an five-wicket win over Hobart Hurricanes.

With the four-foreigner limit leaving no room for him in Kings XI's star-studded line-up, Thisara Perera didn't play a single game for them during their 2014 IPL campaign. With Johnson's absence giving him an opportunity, Perera grabbed it, taking two wickets in a three-over spell in which he conceded less than a run a ball before coming in to bat in a thorny situation and scoring an unbeaten 20-ball 35 that steered Kings XI to a win with 14 balls remaining.

The margin of victory looked fairly wide in the end, but it could have gone either way when Kings XI were 51 for 4 in the eighth over, chasing 147. This, though, was where the quality and depth of their batting came to the fore, with Glenn Maxwell playing strokes that belied a two-paced pitch on his way to a 25-ball 43 and George Bailey showing a cool head that his Big Bash League franchise could have done with during their innings, in putting on an unbroken 69 with Perera.

During the IPL, Kings XI had won six out of seven matches batting second, and had chased three 190-plus targets successfully. But on a greenish Mohali pitch where the back-of-a-length ball behaved a touch unpredictably - moving sideways when new, stopping on the batsmen later on, and often bouncing more than expected - their top order were quickly in trouble. Virender Sehwag's first-ball dismissal owed more to his impetuosity than to the conditions, but Wriddhiman Saha, David Miller and Manan Vohra were all discomfited by the extra bounce, and ended up skying catches to mid-on or mid-off while going hard at length balls.

Under these circumstances, Maxwell's innings showcased his rare talent, as he somehow found ways to slap the seamers inside-out or loft them back over their heads, while also playing one of his trademark reverse-sweeps against the legspinner Cameron Boyce.

It was an over from Boyce that reversed the momentum of the game back towards Kings XI, immediately after Maxwell had edged Evan Gulbis to the keeper. Perera found the third-man boundary via a streaky edge before hitting Boyce back over his head for six. Bailey then found the gap between deep midwicket and long-on when Boyce dropped his last ball short - 18 came off that over, and it left Kings XI needing 50 off 48.

Bailey and Perera kept their heads, attacked the loose balls - which for Perera was mostly whatever he could swing over the arc between midwicket and long-on - and the win, when it was achieved, came with time and wickets to spare, Bailey clouting Gulbis for successive fours in the 18th over.

Hurricanes' innings, after they had been sent in to bat, lacked a sustained period when the batsmen were on top of the bowlers. Ben Dunk and Aiden Blizzard, the two left-handers in their top three, struggled for timing early on and got themselves out just as they were beginning to look comfortable. Perera dismissed both of them, and both times the extra bounce caused them to mishit length or back-of-a-length balls, to deep and short cover respectively.

At 78 for 4 in the 13th over, Hurricanes seemed to be going nowhere when Jonathan Wells joined Travis Birt. They proceeded to add 52, with the left-handed Birt flourishing while hitting the legspinner Karanveer Singh with the spin and the right-handed Wells cutting and driving fluently through the off side. Just when the partnership was threatening to take Hurricanes to a biggish total, however, Wells ran himself out, and Kings XI tightened the screws once again, conceding only 14 runs off the last 14 balls of the innings. 

CLT20 Game 1 Group A CSK V KKR

Kolkata Knight Riders 159 for 7 (Russell 58, Ten Doeschate 51*, Nehra 4-21) beat Chennai Super Kings 157 for 4 (Dhoni 35*, Bravo 28*) by three wickets

High drama, it seems, can never be too far from a Kolkata Knight Riders batting effort.

Ten overs into the 158-run chase against Chennai Super Kings, it seemed as if the Knight Riders of the infamous batting meltdowns, had shown up to play. Within a period of 17 balls between the third and the fifth overs, Knight Riders lurched haplessly from 9 for 0 to 9 for 2 and then 21 for 4. Ashish Nehra took three of those wickets, including two off two in the third over and Mohit Sharma, his run-up issues notwithstanding, had managed to get one, too. Soon, Suryakumar Yadav was gone and Knight Riders were 51 for 5.

And then Ryan ten Doeschate and Andre Russell pulled off a heist. Knight Riders went into the final 10 overs needing 98 runs, they won the game with an over to spare.

The scorecard will show the pair had added 80 runs in 45 balls but the numbers do not begin the describe the brutality with which ten Doeschate and Russell accumulated the runs, underlining their already strong reputations in the shorter formats. 

Russell, in particular, has played a few innings like these for Jamaica Tallawahs in the Caribbean Premier League and it was his charge in the 11th over bowled by Ravindra Jadeja that signalled the change in te game. Russell smacked two sixes and a four in a 17-run over to bring the equation down and give the Knight Riders room to breathe.

Thereon, the pair did not allow the Super Kings bowlers to pile on the pressure. Dwayne Bravo bowled a couple of quiet overs but the batsmen controlled the run rate well, taking 18 runs off the 16th over to drag the equation down to a winnable 32 off 24. The game was decidedly in Knight Riders' hands and although they lost two wickets towards the end, there was little Super Kings could do to wrest the advantage back.

Where Russell's fifty was all brute power - he finished with a strike rate of 232 - ten Doeschate played the calming knock, turning the strike repeatedly but finding the six and the four at the right moment in an over. He continued in the same vein after Russell fell, and brought up his fifty with a six in the final over of the match. 

Earlier, the experience of MS Dhoni and Bravo lifted Super Kings to 157 after the side had threatened to fall into a rut against Knight Riders' spin attack. 

The pair changed gears effortlessly to rack up 70 in the last seven overs, after the spin trio of Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine and Yusuf Pathan had nullified a brisk start from Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum. A couple of close calls also went Knight Riders' way, specially the dismissals of McCullum, Suresh Raina and Faf du Plessis. 

McCullum was given out lbw to Pathan although a replay showed that the ball had missed his pad and hit his hand. Raina was given out lbw to Narine even as replays were uncertain over whether it was a no-ball. Du Plessis was given out stumped off Chawla as replays showed that his foot was marginally in the air when Manvinder Bisla whipped the bails off. 

2nd Test Day 4 WI 380 & 269/4d bt BAN 161 & 192 by 296 runs

West Indies 380 & 269/4d

Bangladesh 161 & 192 

West Indies won by 296 runs

Sulieman Benn snuffed out Bangladesh's resistance with his sixth five-for to ensure West Indies won their 500th Test emphatically. and complete a 2-0 series whitewash.

Bangladesh conceded their last eight wickets for 34 runs, emblematic of their fortunes in 2014. Ultimately the fight from Tamim Iqbal and Mominul Haque for nearly three hours ended up a footnote.

Benn posed a constant threat, questioning them with some turn and uneven bounce. With only the lunch break to refresh himself, he bowled unchanged from the 10th to the 50th overs. His perseverance was rewarded when Tamim was lured by the swathes of space on the leg side and top-edged a slog sweep into Shannon Gabriel's waiting hands. 

This was 3.42pm and by the next 23 minutes, Bangladesh's middle-order was ripped open. 

Mahmudullah fell in the next over, the 60th, trapped lbw by an indipper from Gabriel. His review only confirmed the fact that the ball would have hit leg stump. Mominul struck the first ball of the next over, a full-toss from Benn, down midwicket's throat. 

He and Tamim had ground 110 runs in 47.1 overs to inspire hope in the dressing room. But when Nasir fell for 2, the collapse had reached its crescendo and ultimately turned the day into an anti-climax. Bangladesh had been 158 for 2 and lost four wickets for nine runs.

Taijul Islam was sent in at No. 8 once again, possibly for being a left-handed batsman. But he hardly looked a better choice than Shafiul Islam, who followed him to the crease in the 69th over. Taijul's wicket was Benn's fifth, as he became the fifth West Indian spinner to take seven or more five-wicket hauls. 

Jerome Taylor became the 20th West Indian to 100 Test wickets by bowling Mushfiqur Rahim, for a second time in the match, and Robiul Islam'. The innings ended when Shafiul's stumps were splayed in the 78th over by Kemar Roach.

Jerome Taylor got through Mushfiqur Rahim's defenses for a second time in the match, bowling him with a delivery that nipped through bat and pad. This was his 99th Test wicket and four balls later, he made it 100 by clean bowling Robiul Islam, and became the 20th West Indian to reach the milestone.

The innings ended when Shafiul moved away to cut a ball, but Kemar Roach was too quick for him, ending the innings in the 78th over. 

The collapse soured some dogged batting from Mominul and Tamim. They got together at 48 for 2 with lunch only a few minutes away. 

They got through that tricky period and progressed cautiously to tea - making it the second session of the tour that Bangladesh hadn't lost a wicket. There had been an opportunity though but Darren Bravo dropped a regulation chance of Mominul at first slip.

Neither batsman was perturbed by playing for time. They spent 21 overs without a boundary and Tamim's 181-ball 64 was his fourth-longest innings in terms of balls faced and his count of two fours and a six was the lowest when he had played over 100 balls.

Strokeplay was not completely shelved though as Tamim slogged Benn to the midwicket boundary twice in the 28th over. Mominul hit straighter when the left-arm spinner overpitched, confirming a plan to only find boundaries when they are sure of a bad ball.

A passing drizzle forced an early tea and but both batsmen continued diligently on with Tamim reaching his slowest fifty, off 146 balls. He followed it up with a drive that tore through the covers as Bangladesh recorded only their second hundred partnership of the series. 

It was also the second century stand between Tamim and Mominul, the first also coming in a rearguard action against New Zealand in October last year.

Mominul then reached his fifty, also his slowest, off 125 balls. Two overs later, Tamim threw it away and so would Mominul. 

Bangladesh's troubles began in the first session after Ramdin declared with 75 minutes before the lunch interval. Shamsur Rahman's response to the task of batting out a minimum of 169 overs was to go after the bowling, but his jaunt lasted just 38 minutes. He drove a couple of overpitched deliveries to the boundary before launching into Taylor's short ball barrage. He flicked a boundary then pulled another four a six off successive balls, taking 16 off the seventh over.

The only fielder Ramdin pushed back was Kirk Edwards to deep square-leg, who had to wait for four balls in Taylor's next over before Shamsur's out-of-control hook landed in his lap. A 27-ball 39 at the top of the scorecard would stick out as a sore thumb when the situation of the match is considered.

Ramdin quickly swapped Taylor out with Suleiman Benn and gained immediate reward. Anamul Haque followed one that turned and bounced to nick off for a duck.

West Indies' control of the Test at the decisive stage comes courtesy of Shivnarine Chanderpaul's 30th Test hundred. 

When he tucked away his 134th ball round the corner for a single, he not only went past Sir Don Bradman's 29 centuries, he became only the second batsman to remain undefeated throughout a Test series (minimum of three innings) and scored 200-plus runs. 

He has made 269 runs with two fifties and the century. Jacques Kallis was the first to do so, against Zimbabwe in 2001. 

CLT20 Qualifiers 5+6

Lahore Lions 164 for 6 (Hafeez 67, Maharoof 3-28) beat Southern Express 109 (Mubarak 35, Cheema 3-15, Riaz 2-20) by 55 runs

A comprehensive win over Southern Express and Northern Knights' win over Mumbai Indians lifted Lahore Lions into the main draw of the Champions League T20. 

Lions had bettered their chances of qualifying after the big win in the first game of the day but their progress also depended on the result of the game between Knights and Mumbai and the New Zealand team's six-wicket win smoothed the road for Lions.

At the toss, Express captain Jehan Mubarak had said that he had chosen to bowl because he preferred chasing a target with the qualification at stake, and had aimed to restrict Lions to a total in the range of 130-140. Those goals, however, came undone in the last five overs of the Lions innings against an attacking innings from Mohammad Hafeez, who blasted 67 off 40 balls.

Lions went into their last five overs on 89 for 3 before Hafeez changed gears. He blasted Seekkuge Prasanna for a four and three successive sixes off the first four balls of the 16th over, which went for 25. The Lions captain followed that up with a few more big hits and brought up the 150 for the side with a six and four off Charith Jayampathi in the 19th over. By the time the innings ended at 164 for 6, 75 had come off the last five overs.

Express needed one of their top-order batsmen to replicate the kind of innings Hafeez had played but their challenge began withering away soon, as Aizaz Cheema reduced them to 36 for 3. An already weakened innings stumbled along to an early finish as Express lost four wickets for six runs, including Mubarak who had struck a brisk 35.

Cheema, who missed out on a hat-trick for the third successive match in the tournament, finished with 3 for 15 and was well supported by Wahab Riaz and Adnan Rasool as Express folded for 109 in 18 overs.

Lions dominated thoroughly with the ball but they lacked fluency in the first half of their batting innings. Until the 15th over, the Express bowlers had done a good job of restraining the batsmen, specially after Farveez Maharoof's strikes in successive overs.

Lions' opening pair of Umar Siddiq, promoted up the order in place of Nasir Jamshed, and Ahmed Shehzad had made a confident start before Maharoof landed the first breakthrough, enticing a dab from Siddiq that was caught by wicketkeeper Kusal Perera. 

Maharoof's next over turned out to be even better with the wickets of Shehzad and Jamshed, both batsmen out to poor shots. The next seven overs saw Lions score just 37 runs as Hafeez and Saad Nasim focused on rebuilding the innings and set up a flourish at the end. 

Northern Knights 133 for 4 (Williamson 53, Devcich 39) beat Mumbai Indians 132 for 9 (Pollard 31, Styris 3-21, Southee 3-24) by six wickets

A substandard batting performance from defending champions Mumbai Indians led to their elimination from the Champions League as Northern Knights won their third qualification game in a row. 

An all-round display from Knights handed Mumbai their second loss in three matches, a six-wicket defeat that ensured Knights and Lahore Lions qualified for the main tournament.

All three teams were in the fray to advance to the next stage and Mumbai had to win the match, by any margin, to qualify. 

But once they were put in to bat, their task became an uphill one when they were reduced to 46 for 5 by the Knights seamers in the 11th over. The lower order helped them recover, but the chase of 133 was made easy by the Knights openers who steered them to another convincing win.

Desperate to get a strong start, Mumbai never got in the groove as Trent Boult and Tim Southee stifled them with their nagging line outside off, conceding only 11 in the first four overs, and accounting for Michael Hussey. 

First-change Scott Kuggeleijn conceded 15 in the fifth over, but Scott Styris ensured Knights retained suffocating control over proceedings, running through Mumbai's batting with three wickets. 

He got rid of Jalaj Saxena, Lendl Simmons and Aditya Tare, with all three batsmen dismissed while making room to target the off side. Saxena handed a low catch to short cover, Simmons missed completely and lost his off stump and Tare looked to cut late but the ball bounced a tad extra and took an edge to land in BJ Watling's gloves.

Boult then came back for his second spell to account for Ambati Rayudu and Mumbai were crumbling at 46 for 5. Outstanding fielding complemented the bowling, cutting off singles and not allowing Mumbai to rotate the strike under pressure.

Mumbai nearly tripled the score from there, in two stages. Kieron Pollard and Harbhajan Singh stalled the fall of wickets for nearly five overs, and after Harbhajan fell for 10, Pollard started the fightback by striking three boundaries to push the score to 89. 

Lasith Malinga then struck three fours and a six off successive deliveries, two of them off the edge, and Shreyas Gopal topped it by making room and collecting 16 from the last over to lift the total to 132.

Knights were hardly bothered in the chase, despite losing four wickets, as their openers put on a domineering stand of 83. Anton Devcich took charge initially and a calm Kane Williamson rotated the strike from the other end. 

They added 49 runs in the Powerplay, mostly striking the ball around the ground, finding gaps regularly, and converting the loose deliveries on offer.

Bowling changes after the Powerplay didn't help Mumbai, as Williamson chipped the ball into the gaps and used his feet against the spinners to accelerate. 

Devcich cashed in on the full tosses and short balls before he became the first of four batsmen to fall to soft dismissals, three of them popping catches to catching fielders in front of the wicket. 

But by the time Mumbai removed the openers, Knights needed only 30 from 43 balls and even though Watling gave his wicket away to fall for a duck, Styris came in and hit the winning runs with 16 balls to spare, after Daryl Mitchell had scored 15 off Malinga in the previous over.

2nd Test Day 3 WI 380 & 208/4 V BAN 161

Stumps Day 3: WI 380 & 208/4 V BAN 161 (WI lead by 427 runs)

Barring the 92 minutes they took in the morning session to bowl Bangladesh out for 161, West Indies batted out the rest of the third day and fortified their hold of the second Test in St Lucia. Their lead sits at a daunting 427 runs after they meandered to 204 for 4 at stumps.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul batted sturdily to complete his 66th half-century. 

Jermaine Blackwood, at the other end, looked quite assured as well during a 108-run unbroken stand. The pair came together when West Indies had suddenly lost their third and fourth wicket in the space of two overs. Darren Bravo dragged the ball from his bat to his pads and onto his stumps and Kraigg Brathwaite fell for 45, as Mahmudullah lured the outside edge to slip.

However, West Indies had already been well placed courtesy a rapid 76-run opening stand. Even the dogged Brathwaite wasn't shy of even lofting the ball across the line on few occasions. He slogged Taijul Islam for a six and a four over midwicket. 

But it was Leon Johnson who forced the run-rate with a lively 41 off 59 balls, including eight fours. He cut Al-Amin Hossain to the boundary off the first ball after lunch and used the pull, sweep and some fine dabs to ensure West Indies hardly bogged down. He could have reached a fifty quite easily but yorked himself against Taijul Islam in the 20th over.

Taijul could have dented West Indies further in the same over, but Kirk Edwards won a review after umpire Steve Davis adjudged him leg-before. Replays showed the batsman had inside-edged the ball onto his front pad. 

But Edwards, for a second time in the game, couldn't take advantage his reprieve. He guided a Shafiul Islam delivery to gully in the 23rd over. In the first innings, he survived a dropped catch on 5 but got out for 16. Here he moved from 0 to 2 before being dismissed.

A 10-minute rain break posed as a reminder the poor weather over the next two days and Bangladesh's tail did their best to bring that into contention.

The last three wickets added 57, a marked improvement from their wretched batting on the second day. Mahmudullah batted sensibly to score his second successive Test fifty, his eighth overall. He struck two boundaries - cut through point and hammered down to long-on - and a six over midwicket during his 100-ball stay.

But two balls after reaching his fifty, Sulieman Benn got one to bounce slightly more than Mahmudullah anticipated and could only outside edge his cut to the keeper. It marked the third time Denesh Ramdin has taken five catches in an innings.

Mahmudullah had added 45 runs for the eighth wicket with Shafiul who made only 10 runs, but survived for 85 minutes to save his team from more embarrassment, especially when he had walked in to 89 for 7.

But 104 for 7 wasn't a great place to start on the third morning, and it means that with two days remaining in the game, Bangladesh remain at the mercy of their hosts. 

2nd Test Day 2 WI 380 V BAN 104/7

After Day 2 WI 380 v BAN 104/7 (BAN trail by 276)

Kemar Roach thrilled on his way to a five-wicket haul, leaving the Bangladesh batsmen dazed and confused. His 12-over spell after the tea interval gave West Indies full command at the end of the second day, with the visitors left lurching at 104 for seven.

They are now 276 runs behind West Indies' 380 all out from earlier in the day. The three-man pace attack was what Denesh Ramdin used for all but two overs till stumps.

Roach removed Shamsur Rahman in the sixth over and after tea, and accounted for Anamul Haque, Tamim Iqbal, Nasir Hossain and Taijul Islam to complete his sixth five-for and his first of the year. His deliveries would invariably be on a good length or further up, tempting the batsmen to either play the ball or leave with some confusion.

Roach was lucky to get the wicket of Shamsur, who tickled a legside delivery, neatly caught by Ramdin diving to his left. Anamul couldn't make up his mind whether to leave or play the ball. He suffered that torment for just over an hour until his attempted leave took the bat's face and ended up in Darren Bravo's hands at first slip. 

Tamim, having made 48 off 75 balls, was constantly being dragged away from the stumps even when he was leaving the ball. After several close shaves, Tamim went sideways, edging the ball far from his body.

Nasir Hossain's prod was more out of speculation but he hardly wasted time in the middle. Taijul was set up with relentless short balls, two hitting him in the gloves, and then he timed one right into third-man's lap. Roach's five-for was complete

Apart from Roach's five, Jerome Taylor took two wickets while Shannon Gabriel went wicketless, but the plan to attack Bangladesh was a three-man strategy.

Gabriel was the quickest of the lot, regularly hitting 90mph and he attacked the stumps mostly but he also beat the bat a number of times. He had stung Tamim on the front boot with a yorker just before tea and the batsman only survived the review because Hawkeye suggested the ball had pitched inches outside the leg stump.

Taylor bowled more at the body, reintroducing the Bangladesh batsmen to their old fear: the short ball. His delivery to Mominul Haque was virtually unplayable with the batsman completely unaware where the ball that hit him in the gloves had gone.

It was smartly caught by Jermaine Blackwood at short leg, and the spit that was created by the seam hitting the pitch just short of a good length made it the most dangerous delivery of the day.

Thirty-nine minutes later, Taylor moved the ball back into Bangladesh's best batsman on the tour, Mushfiqur Rahim, and dislodged the off stump.

Earlier, the West Indies innings ended an hour into the second session, after Shivnarine Chanderpaul had held it together with an unbeaten 84. He had made an unbeaten 85 in the first innings of the first Test, but here in St. Lucia the situation was more complicated.

When he joined Darren Bravo late on the first day, the fourth-wicket pair had to negotiate an invigorated Bangladesh bowling attack. They guided West Indies to safety but Bravo didn't last too long in today's morning session, losing his patience after Robiul Islam and Al-Amin Hossain had strung together seven parsimonious overs. In the first six overs of the day, West Indies scored only two runs, both being no-balls.

Bravo was drawn into following a Robiul outswinger, edging to the wicketkeeper for 46. It triggered a collapse and three more wickets - those of Jermaine Blackwood, Ramdin and Roach - fell in the next 21 balls. Al-Amin was on a hat-trick at one stage after he had made the ball straighten after pitching to find the edges of Blackwood, caught at first slip, and Ramdin, caught behind.

West Indies were 269 for 7, and Chanderpaul only had the tail for company. Help came from No 9 Jerome Taylor, who hammered 40 off 31 balls with five fours and two sixes. 

The 41 minutes of mayhem threw Bangladesh off-kilter, evidenced by Mominul Haque dropping Taylor at cover, when he was on 18. And even after Taijul Islam broke the 54-run eighth wicket stand, Bangladesh's wait wasn't over.

Sulieman Benn made 25 and added 52 with Chanderpaul for the ninth wicket, before he was caught at fine leg off Al-Amin. The innings ended soon after, when Robiul bowled Shannon Gabriel in the 124th over. Al-Amin finished with three wickets while Shafiul, Robiul and the expensive Taijul picked up two each.

The bowlers may have thought they did a good enough job by taking 7 for 134 in the first three hours but they will have to put in a gargantuan effort with the bat as well, to drag the Bangladesh innings past the follow-on mark, if they are to have another bowl at the home side.