da betcris： Sussex nearly clipped the Eagles’ wings. The Eagles though, dared to fly away, after what looked like a potential choke
da bet7： Nagraj Gollapudi in Delhi13-Oct-2009Allan Donald sat on the open-air terrace in front of the commentary box wringing his hands, without for one moment, taking those big eyes off the action in front of him. There was an important reason behind Donald’s intense gaze: the Eagles, the team he represented as a youngster, were nearing the target set by Sussex and Donald was doing his best to hide his obvious excitement behind that steely facade.Later, Donald found his way into the ground and positioned himself next to the Eagles dugout, to get ready for the post-match presentation as Rilee Rossouw made merry during the chase. Still, somewhere at the back of his mind, Donald might have thought about the various moments in South Africa’s cricket history when nerves had got the better of the team. And the proverbial twist just arrived.From the dominant position they found themselves in at the end of the Powerplay overs (47 for no loss) the Eagles played steadily and with five overs to go the asking rate was just over six an over. But off the last six balls they needed 12, with 20-year-old Rossouw, who had scored an aggressive half-century, departing in the previous over. Michael Yardy, the Sussex captain, summoned his best bowler, Yasir Arafat, who started brilliantly, conceding only three runs off the first three balls. Then Ryan McLaren went for the big one and was lucky as the bottom edge, to Sussex’s dismay, raced past the wicketkeeper and to the rope. A dot ball followed, and McLaren hit a four off the last ball, ensuring the first-ever Champions League Twenty20 tie.Coaches usually set targets for both batsmen and bowlers in the nets by placing an imaginary field and announcing something like ‘right, five off two balls”. Yardy and his team-mates had practised such death-over tactics, but never the one-over eliminator.In contrast, the Eagles had already experienced the pressure of an eliminator, during the third leg of the best-of-three semi-finals against the Warriors in the Standard Bank Pro20 Series. “It certainly did help,” Boeta Dippenaar, the Eagles captain, said with a smile. He also said they were lucky to bat first. “I always think it does help a bit if you bat first in the Eliminator, particularly if you post above seven or eight runs. It helps if the runs are on the board because it is very, very difficult to try and hit the ball out of the ground.”Dippenaar’s theory carried weight as the power-hitting duo of Dwayne Smith and Rory Hamilton-Brown went for huge heaves against back-of-length deliveries from Eagles fast bowler Cornelius de Villiers, who hit off stump both times. de Villiers had already tasted glory in the domestic semis after being named the Bowler of the Match against the Warriors, with figures of 3.3-0-12-5. “Both [Luke] Wright and Smith are formidable players to full-length deliveries so we thought sticking to back-of-length was a success,” said de Villiers, who was playing his first game today.But Dippenaar felt the game shouldn’t have gone to the eliminator especially after Rossouw’s rousing start, during which he flayed every bowler. Despite the notorious low nature of the Kotla pitch, Rossouw wanted to just take charge as soon as possible and was successful with his horizontal shots.But as the ball got old, he tired. Yardy sensed that and immediately brought all three spinners – Piyush Chawla, Hamilton-Brown and himself – into operation. That increased the pressure on the Eagles’ batsmen who suddenly seemed to have lost their way in the middle overs.”What their spinners did really, really well was bowl the ball quite quickly into the wicket so it was very difficult to get to the pitch of the ball. The ball was sticking into the wicket,” Dippenaar said.Sussex were not helped by some casual fielding and James Kirtley shouted at himself in frustration after dropping an easy chance at short fine leg when Rossouw, on 26, went for the paddle against an Arafat full toss. There were also at least a couple of occasions when the exhausted batsmen didn’t stretch to make the crease but the Sussex fielders failed to capitalise. But Yardy just did not blame the fielding. “It looked like it was gone after seven overs but we fought so hard to get back into it and then to lose it is really heart breaking.”Rossouw, who was recently signed by Royal Challengers Bangalore for the third edition of the IPL, played his winning hand once again in the eliminator bowled by Arafat, punishing the Pakistan fast bowler over long on for a six. A target of nine, as Dippenaar said, was never going to be easy. Eventually the best side won the eliminator and the sour taste that sometimes accompanies a penalty shootout in football was missing. “He is probably the best young prospect in South Africa by far. I’ll bet my mortgage on it that he would have a very successful career for South Africa,” said Dippenaar in praise of Rossouw.In the end the best two games of the tournament so far involved the England teams – Somerset stole a thriller in Hyderabad last week against Deccan Chargers, and Sussex very nearly clipped the Eagles’ wings.
