HERSCHELLE GIBBS and Richard Levi carried on from where they left off in last season’s Domestic T20 Final to lead the Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras to an impressive seven-wicket victory over the NSW Blues in their opening Nokia Champions League T20 match at Chennai on Saturday.
In the clash between the domestic T20 champions of South Africa and Australia the Cobras completed a wonderful double for South African cricket after the Chevrolet Warriors’ victory over the Royal Challengers Bangalore the previous day.
“This has been a wonderful advertisement for South African cricket and a great way to start our season with the Australians due to arrive here for their tour in little more than two week’s time,” commented Cricket South Africa (CSA) CEO Gerald Majola.
The Blues, who won the toss, dominated the first 10 overs when the international duo of Shane Watson and David Warner exploited some sloppy fielding to enable them to put 82/2 on the board at the halfway stage of the innings.
During this period the Cobras dropped three catches and also gave away two unnecessary boundaries with some careless work on the ground.
But the Cobras then took over for the remaining 30 overs of the match as first the Australians lost six wickets for 53 runs in the second half of their innings. Vernon Philander (2/21 with 10 dot balls) led the way and Robbie Peterson (1/20 with 12 dot balls) also stood out.
Gibbs and Levi then launched the Cobras innings superbly, rushing to 88 before Levi was dismissed off the third ball of the 10th over. Levi contributed 43 off only 27 balls and Man-of-the-Match Gibbs almost finished the job with 55 off 47 balls.
When Levi was dismissed the target had been reduced to 48 off 63 balls and Gibbs virtually saw them home by which time the target had been reduced to 24 off 34 balls.
It was left to Justin Ontong and JP Duminy to finish the job and give the Cobras a healthy net run rate which could be important in what is a very tough group.
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