There was much hype about the Hobart Hurricanes, how they are giant killers and can halt winning momentums. This, however, didn’t happen in the Champions League T20 semifinals as the Kolkata Knight Riders rolled into finals with a thumping seven-wicket win in Hyderabad.
The Knights Riders remained in firm control of the proceedings and registered their 14th successive win in the T20s. Jacques Kallis, well there not enough adjectives to describe the class of this legend, made a match-winning half-century to steer his team home.
Kallis, as usual, was at his dazzling best and made an unbeaten 40-ball 54, featuring two mighty sixes. He increased the ante at the end, after making sure there is no anti-climax left into the encounter, to help KKR chase down the target with five balls to spare.
The Knight Riders were never under threat, as the Hurricanes batting failed to fire as they would have liked. They posted a below par 141 runs target on the board and despite scalping skipper Gautam Gambhir cheaply they were really never into the game.
After losing Gambhir (4) early and soon Robin Uthappa (17), Kallis came to the fore, after missing out in the last game. He stitched a 63-run partnership with back-in-form Manish Pandey (40) and then an unbeaten 34-run stand with Yusuf Pathan (14 not out).
“Happy to play a role in getting us through the finals,” Kallis said. “Scoring up front is going to be easier than the middle period here. Had to set it up for the big hitter. It’s great fun playing in finals and senior players have to stand up and put in big performances and it will be the end of a fantastic year for KKR if we win the CLT20 after the IPL as well.”
Earlier, electing to bat, the Hurricanes failed to post a competitive total on the board. The Hurricanes never get going and knotted by the Knight Riders. They, however, were steered to a decent total by Shoaib Malik’s unbeaten fifty.
Malik (66 not out) anchored the one end but got no support from the other batmen. He, meanwhile, stitched small-small partnerships with Ben Dunk (39), Travis Birt (13) and Evan Gulbis (15) but there was not enough total to undone the reigning Indian Premier League (IPL) champs.
“The best way to go about it was runs on the board, and 10 or 15 extra runs would have been nice,” stand-in skipper Xavier Doherty said. “Shoaib played really well. We knew spin was going to be a big issue. Shoaib held us together and gave us a total to bowl at.”
