Hyderabad Heroes beat Kolkata Tigers by 4 wickets

Hyderabad, March 19, 2008: The 12th match of the Edelweiss 20s Challenge featured the hosts, Hyderabad Heroes champions take on the spirited Kolkata Tigers at the magnificent, Lal Bahadur Stadium, Hyderabad.

The sparkling venue has been a happy hunting ground for the Hosts who registered their first win when they took on Chennai Superstars in the first match at the new ICL facility on March 15th. Another close match which, went right down to the wire saw the Heroes defeat the Tigers by 4 wickets. Jimmy Maher was declared Man of the Match.

Jeff Dujon in his pitch report predicted a good even track with true bounce making it conducive for a high scoring match. Chris Harris won the toss and put the Tigers in to bat first. The great Klusener was long due for a big score and got into the act, hitting two big sixes to take 21 runs off Shahabuddin's first over.

There was no stopping the Klusener onslaught and he was dealing in some serious big hits to the boundaries. By the end of the 4th over the Tigers were off to a flyer at 48 for no loss. The heroes finally got their first breakthrough in the fifth over, with the wicket of Subhomoy Das at the score of 51.

Harris brought on his young left arm spinner Reddy in the 5th over and he was relatively successful in toning down the Zulu onslaught, with two tight overs costing just 4 runs. By the 7th over the Tigers were placed at 57/1. Zulu brought on his fifty off only 23 balls in the 9th over with a big six off Reddy. At the half way mark of their innings the Tigers were comfortably placed at 82/1 with Klusener & Jhunjhunwala looking in ominous form at the middle.

The Zulu onslaught finally came to an end in the 15th over when he was caught by keeper Ibrahim Khaleel off the bowling of Harris, for a magnificent 73. At the end of the 15th over the Tigers were placed at 125/3 perfectly set for big score. Some big hitting in the end from Andre Adams in the end helped the Tigers set a target of 165 for the Heroes.

In reply The Heroes opened their innings with the left hand combination of the experienced Jimmy Maher& promising Anirudh Singh. Singh got about with the business getting 11 runs off the second over from the young Sujay Tarafdar, with 2 wonderful boundaries. However, Tarafdar got his revenge in the 4th over getting Singh to miscue a pull shot to be caught at point for 14.

The 5th over from Hayward made a big double strike sending back the inform Boje, & promising Rayudu back in the Heroes dugout without troubling the scorers. At the end of the 6th over the Heroes were placed at 41/3 with Kemp and Maher battling it out in the middle.

At the end of the 10th ove,r the match was fascinatingly placed with Heroes needing 98runs of 60 balls with7 wickets in hand. Maher and Kemp were building a solid partnership till Kemp held out one to long on in the 12th over reducing the Heroes to 84/4. A mix up resulting in the run-out of the dangerous Abdul Razzaq did not help the matters for the Heroes, reducing them to 91/5 in the 13th over.

By the end of the 16th over the Heroes were placed at 120/6 needing 46 more runs off only 24 balls at 11.5 runs per over. Stuart Binny was playing a cameo taking the match to a pulsating climax with the Heroes needing 18 runs off the last 2 overs. Finally Binny and Maher saw Heroes romp home to a thrilling victory in the last over!

Brief Scores: Kolkata Tigers: 165/5 in 20 overs (Klusener 73, Adams 27, Jhunjhunwala 24, Harris 2/16) lost by 4 wickets Hyderabad Heroes (Jimmy Maher65, Stuart Binny 44, Hayward 2/27)

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