Wednesday 21 September 2011

Rahuna stay alive to eliminate Leicestershire Foxes

Ruhuna and Leicestershire fought like knights after the two teams haven't registered a win going into the final match with both looking to get to the 2nd highest placed team spot. This match affects the match going on between Kolkata and Somerset who just need a tight game to go through to the group stages. 


It was calculated that the Foxes needed 161 from 13.2 overs as Ruhuna set a total of 160-6 thanks to an impressive display by Dinesh Chandimal who top scored with 62 not out. He batted risk-free with only 6 4s and 2 6s to get to 62 in 51 balls leaving the biggest hits to the last overs. Ruhuna were looking to spiral downhill when they were at 67-4 in 10 overs but Chandimal's partnership with Siriwardana and Karunanayake helped steady the ship to get to the total. Abdul Razzak's bowling and batting helped Leicestershire to get their innings to a good start but his bowling as well as Harry Gurney's bowling of 3-33 helped insure that Ruhuna get to a shaky start before Chandimal's brilliant innings came to its peak.


With the pressure building to get to their target in 13.2 overs to insure their qualification to the group stages, Josh Cobb, Abdul Razzak with his 68 and Andrew Macdonald's small and explosive cameo of 24, the Foxes got to a brilliant start and were cruising to win and not qualify when they got to 81-3 in 9 overs. In the 12th over, Razzak gone mad and tried to hit every delivery for 6 but instead had got his team 33 runs in 3 overs with the help of 2 drop catches as hopes as qualification went down the drain. And with 33 needed of a comfortable 36 balls, their unwise batting yet against shown up as Nixon and White perished in the next 2 overs putting Ruhuna back in the game. After that, the tailenders could only get the singles from the great bowling of Alankara Silva and Janaka Gunaratne with 3 wickets each meaning that the Foxes were only 4 runs short from Ruhuna's total. One English team hopes are dashed as they head to the airport contending with losses they hope to remember for a long time.

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