MATCH: Royal Challengers Bangalore v New South Wales Blues
DATE: Friday, October 7, 2011
TIME: 2000 hours IST (1430 hours GMT)
VENUE: M Chinnaswamy in Bangalore
The first semi-final of the Champions League T20 this year will be played between Royal Challengers Bangalore and the New South Wales Blues.
Past Record:
The Royal Challengers Bangalore (10/11 at
Stan James) qualified for the semi-finals after being left with an outside chance to make it through. They lost two games in a row to start off the proceedings, before defeating the Somerset side in their penultimate game.
Then, in their last, must-win match against the South Australian Redbacks, they seemed to have given away the game despite a valiant chase from Virat Kohli and T Dilshan. A last-ball six from the little-known Arun Karthik sealed the game and their fate.
New South Wales Blues (11/10 at
Ladbrokes) went down to Cobras in the first match but they have been spectacular in their comeback. They came back from behind to tie against Trinidad and Tobago, before winning it in the Super Over.
Then, they restricted Mumbai Indians to 100, overcame the early wobbles to win the game easily in the end. In their last, must-win encounter, the Blues crushed Chennai Super Kings by getting to more than 200 on an otherwise slow pitch.
The two teams have never played a CLT20 game before.
Side-effect:
The winner will enter the final and play the winner of the game between Mumbai Indians and Somerset.
Team News:
The pitch at M Chinnaswamy has been so batting friendly that defending totals is a rather difficult task. On two of the occasions, Bangalore have failed to defend chases of around 170, while chasing down 224 against New South Wales.
Given this the case, the pair of Tillakaratne Dilshan and Chris Gayle assume more importance than usual for this knockout game. The good news for the side is that both have warmed up sufficiently and have shown enough signs of being at full throttle leading into the game.
Daniel Vettori continues to remain the standout bowler, even as the rest of them struggle. Dirk Nannes has had a fairly up and down kind of a tournament, while Sreenath Aravind’s 0/69 from four overs will put tremendous pressure on the young shoulders.
The Blues have a slight disadvantage to an extent. They have played all their games so far in Chennai and to make the move up to Bangalore could take some adjusting. Especially for games that are going so close and getting decided off the last overs. At Chennai, the pitch was ragged and slow and the batsmen needed to be wary of the changes of pace and bounce. Bangalore will allow the ball to come on to the bat and how the batsmen other than Dave Warner adjust to it will be a question.
Warner aside, the tournament hasn’t been too good, batting-wise for the New South Wales batsmen. Shane Watson has hardly shown any form, Daniel Smith is a surprise number-three even as Phil Hughes languishes on the substitutes’ bench while Simon Katich looks as comfortable in this format as Michael Bevan did in the Test matches.
Blues, therefore, will expect much more from their bowling. Patrick Cummins, for the first time, will relish the pitch given its bounce and how he goes about his business will translate tremendously into deciding the winner.
Who is hot?
Hughes needs to get a spot in the New South Wales batting line-up. For Bangalore, Syed Mohammad could be the bowler they use in the middle overs to stem the flow of runs. How he goes against Warner will be interesting.
Prediction:
Bangalore will be favourites but a lot will depend on the opening batsmen for both sides, which have a rather brittle middle-order.
