Summary Lahore Lions had to defeat Perth Scorchers by big margin; Perth Scorchers went on to win the game
BANGALORE: (Dunya News) – Lahore Lions’ dream shattered on Tuesday as it was unable to defeat Perth Scorchers (Australia) in the Champions League Twenty-20 tournament in an all important game. Perth Scorchers had to be defeated by a big margin but instead Aussies defeated the Pakistani champions comfortably with one 6 balls to spare. Although Perth Scorchers had lost 6 wickets for a modest 40 runs and at that time, it looked like Lions will be able to restrict Scorchers within 78 runs (which was necessary for Lahore Lions to qualify for next round) but it was not meant to be.
Perth Scorchers struggled a bit in the earlier phase of their innings in pursuit of Lahore Lions’ 124. However, Mitch Marsh and Brad Hogg saw the Aussie champs through without much hustle afterwards. Fielding first helped Perth Scorchers too as rain slowed the pitch down a bit.
Nasir Jamshed opened the innings for Lahore Lions along with Umar Sadiq but Nasir was the first to leave only for 1 run while Lahore Lions had a total of 2 runs on the board. Rain stopped the play for a while later. Return to the ground proved to be disastrous for the batting side Hafeez (0), Wahab Riaz (0) and Umar Sadiq (1) took almost no time to leave the pitch. However, Saad Nasim was simply brilliant for his 69* off just 55 balls with 7 boundaries and a six. Umar Akmal played well for his 26 off 19 but was unable to make it to the end. Mohammad Saeed scored 20 runs off 26 balls and was bowled out by Paris. Lahore Lions could score only 124 runs off their allotted 20 overs.
It seemed to be an easy target for Perth Scorchers but the Aussies found themselves almost at the edge of collapsing at 40 for 6 only after 8.2 overs. Lahore Lions’ skipper Mohammad Hafeez and Mustafa Iqbal had already showed 4 of the Perth Scorchers’ batsmen way back to the pavilion by then. However, Marsh stood out to score an undefeated 63 off just 38 balls and take the game away from Lahore Lions. Brad Hogg stood alongside him to score 28 off just 19 balls with the help of 2 sixes and 2 boundaries. Perth Scorchers chased the total comfortably in the end with one over to spare.
Hafeez, Mustafa Iqbal took 2 wickets each while Aizaz Cheema and Saad Nasim claimed 1 each. Mitch Marsh was declared Man of the Match for his brilliant innings.
