Namibia Global T20 Mini Round Up

 The final of this fun little competition went to form and the Lions beat the Lahore Qalanders – however it went to the wire as they needed 11 runs off the last over and 6 off the last two to take it.

 

Yet again Reeza Hendricks played a blinder resetting his highest score for the tournament at 94* off 59. He finishes the tournament with the first and second highest score. Evan Jones went wicketless in the final but still ends up as the best bowler with 9 wickets @ 13.55.

 

The Lions now chip off home and the Lahore Qalanders play out two One Day games on Wednesday and Friday…..which is odd for a T20 team. 

Sri Lanka Under 19s Tour of England - 1st ODI Update

 The first ODI between England Under 19s and Sri Lanka Under 19s is one of those ones I find tricky to write about.

The Sri Lankans batted almost all of their full allocation before the heavens opened with them on 248-9. This would have been a challenging target and set up a good game....but so prolific was the rain in Worcester that it only allowed England the chance to chase down 172 in 25 overs. They nearly screwed this up by losing wickets very regularly but managed to get there in the final over.

One thing that is clear is that Nottinghamshire's Fateh Singh was the player of the match with figures of 3-49. 

Namibia Global T20 Update

 In a triumph of scheduling, Lions, the strongest team in the competition played twice today. The first game, Lions vs Peshawar Zalmi, will be repeated in tomorrow's formal. Lion's won the dress rehearsal before they lost their final game; handing Namibia Eagles a conciliation win to round off their tournament. Gerhard Erasmus was the player of the match for Namibia.

Reeza Hendricks got 55 runs in the first game and sat out the second.....and still is the tournament leading run scorer. The same is the case with Evan Jones who got 2 wickets in the first game, sat out for the second and still has 2 more wickets than anyone else. 

New Zealand A Tour of India First Test Write Up

 To say that the Bengaluru pitch might have been batter friendly in the first Unofficial A test between India and New Zealand might be underselling it rather. Across the two completed innings there were no fewer than 4 centuries and the bowlers – India’s led by the experienced Kuldeep Yadav – didn’t get a look in.

The first century was the biggest. Joe Carter’s 197 off 305 balls saw New Zealand back from a bas start where they were 10-1 and 28-2. They eventually were all out for 400. The Indian innings then began with three batters passing the mantle of being the most impressive scorers on to one another. First off was Abhimanyu Easwaran who got 132. He and Rajat Patadar batted fluently together before the former was out. This allowed Madhya Pradesh’s Patidar to go on and top the opener and reach 176. To round it off Tilak Varma got the third century of the innings – 121 off 183. India A then declared with a lead of 171 – hoping to maybe skittle New Zealand out – but it was not to be.

 

2 more Tests are scheduled with the next starting on Thursday in Hubballi. 

Sri Lankan Major League Tournament Update

 This has been quite a hard tournament to follow and update.

 

Firstly, as you can imagine, the coverage in Sri Lanka has been patchy. Also, there are so many teams and the fixtures are all over-lapping; for example, a round of matches has finished today but another started today as well…..problematic, at best. I will therefore take this arbitrary point to offer you some findings.

 

Moors are the team to beat so far. They are the only team with a 100% record which is even more impressive considering they have played 3 matches – whereas others have just played the one.

 

As ever in these competitions there are some huge gulfs in terms of the teams. On 6 occasions teams have been beaten by an innings. Moors success is underlined by the fact that they have beaten 2 teams by that margin. Fans of Kandy will be concerned that they have been beaten by an innings now fewer than three times.  

The standout batter in the tournament remains Nishan Madushka. He registered a huge 300* in the last round of fixtures against lowly Sebastianites. With a score like that you will not be surprised to hear he is the highest tournament run scorer as well with nearly 200 more than anyone else.

 

This round of games has also seen the Sri Lankan domestic legend that is Malinda Pushpakumara land the outrageous figures of 8-27 in Colts innings victory over Lankan. This is the second eightfer of the tournament. The first was bagged by Sri Lankan Army’s Kamul Nanayakkara in a match against Bloomfied. Nanayakkara is the tournament’s best wicket taker with 24 @ 12.95.

 

Matches continue…..seemingly all the time. 

Namibia Global T20 Update

 The Lions look the team to beat with 2 wins in 2. Today Lahore looked the best of the rest as they beat the Namibian Eagles by a huge 8 wickets.

The Lions hold all the individual tournament records too. Reeza Hendricks has both the highest individual score (77 from the first game) and the most runs overall (108) - this despite playing one fewer game than his rivals.

A similar situation is in place with the bowling where Evan Jones has the only fivefer and has the best tournament figures - 7 @ 5.85.

Games continue tomorrow but the final is likely to be Lions versus Lahore. 

Namibia Global T20 Update

The Richelieu Eagles and DP World Lions' match got in Namibia's Global T20 League underway today.

 

The tournament is a bit like the Champions League of cricket....just a bit crapper. The DP World Lions, Lahore Qalandars, and Richelieu Lions are the three teams that are competing. It was planned to add another squad—the Bengal state team from India—to the mix. However, the BCCI refused to give the Bengal team permission to compete.

 

The Namibia Global T20 competition features a total of seven matches, followed by two one-day matches between Lahore Qalandars and Richelieu Lions. The Wanderers Cricket Ground in Windhoek will host each game with the final on the 5th. 

 

The first game was won by the South African set-up thanks to the experience of Reeza Hendricks who got 77 off 42 balls in the first innings total of 183. Namibia’s Eagles could not compete with that and fell 18 runs short.

 

Tomorrow sees the Richelieu Eagles play Lahore.