Desert Vipers maintained their fine run in DP World ILT20 Season 4 with a comfortable four-wicket win over Sharjah Warriorz at the Dubai International Stadium on Saturday (December 20). The victory secured Vipers’ place at the top of the standings after eight matches, with 14 points and very little doubt they will finish in the top two.
A well-disciplined bowling display saw David Payne dismissive of the home side as they were bowled out for just 90. No other batsman could quite cut it for the Warriorz, excepting Tom Abell with an unbeaten 35 off 36 balls. Sam Curran led the Vipers’ pursuit with 37 from 31 balls, including five boundaries, steering his team home with an impressive 37 balls to spare.
In pursuit of a modest target, the Vipers were steady despite being rocked by early wickets. Taskin Ahmed made inroads early by dismissing Fakhar Zaman (6) and Hasan Nawaz (10), but Sam Curran’s boundaries ensured that the run rate stayed within check. When Max Holden (8) became the second victim of Dwaine Pretorius, the Vipers were 38/8 at six hours.
Curran, who brought an anchor role in the middle overs along with Dan Lawrence (14), kept the scoreboard ticking and rotated the strike well. Though there were tidy overs from Taskin Ahmed, Adil Rashid and Pretorius, the Warriorz weren’t able to apply consistent pressure.
Some late wickets – Lawrence to Harmeet Singh and Curran to Sikandar Raza – were too little too late, as Tom Bruce (10)* and Vriitya Aravind (3)* saw the Vipers home with ease.
Earlier, Payne double-struck in his powerplay – removing Johnson Charles (3 off 9) and Tom Kohler-Cadmore (9 off 11) – for the cost of just nine runs in three overs. The Vipers, with the aid of Khuzaima Tanveer and Naseem Shahs bowling, were successful in containing the Warriorz as they transitioned to 28/2 after six overs.
Payne struck for a second time immediately after the powerplay, dismissing James Rew for a duck to cap an excellent spell of three for 14. Then Lawrence and Naseem Shah gave only 11 runs combined in overs 8 and 9, when the boundaries had simply dried down to a halt.
The Warriorz could never get going in the middle overs with wickets falling at regular intervals. Noor and Curran kept the pressure on with Noor having Ethan D’Souza (18 off 21) smartly stumped before later trapping Harmeet Singh leg-before for 4, with Raza also falling to Curran as he managed just 1. Tom Abell batted authoritatively but there was little backing up around him.
It all unraveled quickly at the fag end of the innings. Khuzaima Tanveer also dismissed both Dinesh Karthik (3 off 5) and Dwaine Pretorius (1 off 3) in the 15th over and Naseem Shah’s burst in the last over – his first of this T10 season – saw to Adil Rashid and Taskin Ahmed. The Warriorz slumped from 76/7 to be bowled out for just 90, leaving their opponents an easily achievable total.
“My “plans a little unorthodox this evening. It was more about cross-ball and playing to their strengths. We all know where Johnson Charles hits Lara but the plan was to play outside his arc and fortunately it worked.
“It’s pressure off me that we’ve got such a good bowling line-up here. We have a lot of world class bowlers in this side and our real strength is how well we communicate with one another and work as a unit,” said player of the game David Payne.
The captain of the Sharjah Warriorz, Sikandar Raza, while talking about tomorrow’s match said: “We’ve won our games in this tournament batting first and if we are chasing then maybe we haven’t got enough good combinations out there. The plan at the toss was to give our batters the freedom to go get a total because on this type of wicket 140-145 you never know, it can be tough to chase.
Character is what you are when everything is stacked against you. Every game for us now is a final, and if we can win three consecutive finals then no team will be in better shape than we are when the postseason starts.”