Cobras impress with resounding win

The South-African franchises continued to impress at the Champions League as Cape Cobras comprehensively beat New South Wales by 7 wickets with 16 balls remaining after Warriors beat Bangalore yesterday. However, the Cobras seemed to have lost the plot after Simon Katich opted to bat and his openers got off to a flier. Justin Kemp and Co stalled the scoring in the latter part to restrict the target to 135 and Hershel Gibbs showed that he still is good with the bat by scoring a relatively subdued but sensible half century.

Despite a sloppy fielding display and a racing start by New South Wales openers, Cape Cobras were able to restrict the Australian side to 135 for 8 mainly due to a disciplined bowling effort in the second half of the innings. The score card read 82 after the first ten overs but the last ten yielded only 53 for the loss of six wickets.

Since, the old ball was hard to score of; the Cobras had to bat aggressively at the start. Gibbs and Richard Levi did exactly that by tearing into the NSW bowling. Mitchell Starc came in for some punishment, Levi crashing a six and two boundaries in the fourth over. Next over, it was Gibbs’ turn to join the party as Cummins conceded 16 runs. After 6 overs, Cobras roared to 58 for no loss with both openers looking in ominous form.

It is not often that Gibbs is left behind in the scoring but Levi unleashed some powerful shots plus a cute revere-sweep before being caught at long-on for 43 that came off 27 balls. Gibbs by then was still in the 30’s, Owais Shah played a reckless shot to give a glimmer of hope to the NSW blues. However, Gibbs kept his cool to bring up his 19th fifty in T20 cricket. He was dismissed for 55 but Ontong and Duminy easily surpassed the 136 run target. In the end, NSW were short by at least 20-25 runs.

Earlier, Watson and Warner started with a bang by adding 41 inside the first five overs, although, they benefited from some horrendous fielding, Philander and Owais Shah missed catches at mid-on off the two openers early on. One more easy chance was put down before Warner found Ontong in the deep. Watson hit a massive six and four boundaries in his 29-ball 34 but missed an agricultural slog to be have his stumps castled by Peterson. Daniel Smith deposited Ontong into the stands as NSW were going well after the tenth over.

The slow nature of the track took over after that as NSW lost wickets regularly to be pegged back. Cobras skipper Justin Kemp dismissed his opposing number though a brilliant catch by Duminy and Smith’s wicket in the next over put brakes on the scoring. The Cobra bowlers applied pressure by taking pace off the ball and the NSW batsmen struggled to get power behind their strokes.

No boundary was hit for 45 deliveries as Kemp, Langeveldt, Philander and Peterson all bowled tidy overs, Dale Steyn was the one to concede the boundary that came through a bottom edge. To add to the NSW woes, no batsman in the last ten overs was able to connect properly, as result the total which at one stage looked set to cross 170 was struggling to reach even 140. Steven Smith utilized 19 deliveries for his 16 when the team needed someone to play a brisk knock, in the end they could only manage a middling total of 135.