Desert Vipers registered a win against MI Emirates to bag their fourth win in ILT20.
Desert Vipers bagged their fourth win in ILT20 2023 against MI Emirates with exceptional performances from batters Alex Hales (62* off 44) and Sherfane Rutherford (56* off 29) who chased a target of 170 with relative ease.
The Vipers’ innings began with slight disappointment as Rohan Mustafa walked back to the crease in the first over, but opener Alex Hales and skipper Colin Munro took it upon themselves to chase down 170, and together they managed to take the Vipers to 58 runs in the powerplay.
Munro then attempted to hit a second consecutive six in the eighth over but found Kieron Pollard instead as he took a stunning one-handed catch to send him back to the dugout for 41 runs. Sam Billings fell soon after in the same over for one.
Sherfane Rutherford got the Vipers back in the game in the 10th over with a couple of sixes. Hales also brought up his fifty off 38 balls in the 15th over.
As we approached the final few overs of the match, the win for the Vipers seemed very much obvious as they needed 19 runs off 30 balls at the end of the 15th over.
Meanwhile, Hales brought up his 17th six of the tournament to open the 16th over and Rutherford made a 26-ball fifty in the 17th over. Without any challenges, the Vipers duo hit the 170-run target in 16.3 overs to lead their team to another victory.
In the first innings, MI Emirates’ Vriitya Aravind and Muhammad Waseem opened the batting for their side. However, their stay in the middle was short as Gus Atkinson forced Aravind to walk back to the dugout in the second over, while Sheldon Cottrell got the better of Waseem at the start of the third over.
Atkinson then appealed for an lbw against new batter Andre Fletcher in the fourth over but it was declined by the umpire. Tom Curran had an opportunity to catch and get rid of Fletcher before the end of the powerplay but dropped the ball. Emirates ended the powerplay with 35/2 on the scoreboard.
The MI franchise brought up their 50 in the eighth over courtesy a boundary from Nicholas Pooran. It seemed like both batters, Pooran and Fletcher, were settled in the middle but Wanindu Hasaranga’s direct hit meant that the latter was run out as the partnership broke.
Next to the crease, Kieron Pollard started off slow but soon got into his stride with a couple of sixes. Pooran and Pollard, in fact, looked fluent in the middle and put on a great 100-run partnership with both players also bringing up their fifties.
Once the Caribbean duo recorded their 100-run stand in the 19th over, they tried to accelerate further. Pooran smashed a maximum in the penultimate over of the contest and Pollard hit a six in the final over of their innings before the former was dismissed by Tom Curran with one ball left in the innings.
The final ball of the first innings yielded another scalp for Curran, who dismissed Najibullah Zadran for a first-ball duck as the MI Emirates managed 169/5 in their 20 overs.
Brief Scores: MI Emirates 169/5 in 20 overs (K Pollard 67*,N Pooran 57; G Atkinson 2/38) lost to Desert Vipers 170/3 in 16.3 overs (A Hales 62*, S Rutherford 56*; Samit Patel 2/23)
