Northern Knights marched majestically into the main draw of the Oppo Champions League Twenty20 at the Shahid Veer Narayan Singh stadium here on Tuesday night.
Winning all its three games in the qualifiers handsomely, the Kiwi squad in its last fixture dealt the death blow to Mumbai Indians’ hopes, inflicting a humiliating defeat on the holder, with six wickets and 2.4 overs in hand.
Setting the stage for victory were openers Kane Williamson (53, 36b, 7x4, 1x6) and Anton Devcich (39, 34b, 4x4, 1x6). Man-of-the-match Scott Styris (three for 21) and Tim Southee (three for 24) played stellar roles in restricting the reigning champion to 132, a target well within reach for the Knights.
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Lahore Lions, with two wins against Mumbai’s one and Southern Express’ none, also qualified. Mumbai Indians and the Knights went into the game with line-ups unchanged from their previous outings.
Knights won the toss and opted to bowl. Trent Boult and Southee never flagged below 130kmph and such firepower was bound to land the spoils. It did as Michael Hussey spooned a catch to Scott Kuggeleijn at mid-on off Southee.
Lendl Simmons had a close shave, when short fine-leg Daniel Harris got his hand to the ball when leaping full length but couldn’t quite hold on to it. Jalaj Saxena flattered to deceive and his straight driven six was followed not much later by a pat to Williamson in the covers off Styris’ military medium-pace.
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Styris turned out to be a different kettle of fish when he had Simmons’ stumps splayed and Aditya Tare snicking to wicketkeeper Bradley-John Watling. Then Boult’s thunderbolt hustled Ambati Rayudu into edging to Watling.
So bottled up by the bowling was Mumbai Indians that it hobbled to its half-century well into the 12th over and Sunday night’s swagger seemed a distant dream.
Fielding reached a hallmark high when Anton Devcich was poise personified as he closed his palms around an overhead offering, inches inside the ropes. If Kieron Pollard posed a pocket of resistance, Daniel Harris put an end to that, covering some ground to grab a catch at deep square-leg.