GT20 Canada: Vancouver Knights upset apple cart of Brampton Wolves

Rest day yesterday did not augur well for the leaders Brampton Wolves as they suffered a humiliating nine-wicket defeat at the hands of fourth-placed Vancouver Knights in the GT20 Canada championship at CAA complex on Friday.

They were again without their star Harbhajan Singh who has rushed back to India on an emergency political call.
Defeat, their first in five games, did not change its position as the number one team as Brampton Wolves will now need to win their subsequent games to maintain its leadership.

Put to bat first, wolves suffered a major collapse. It was Ruben Trumpelmann who in his first two overs turned devastating claiming three wickets for three runs with one maiden over. From 27 for one Wolves were tottering at  38 for five after Rizwan Cheema left.

Luckily for Wolves, lower order and tailenders waged a stubborn battle to accord some respectability to the team total. After Usman and Chris Green in the top order with scores of 18 and 23, respectively, had departed, Hussain Talat (20) chipped in to stem the rot.  Logan Beek (15) and skipper Tim Southee (16) followed suit with some big hits. Shahid Ahmadzai also hit a couple of sixes in his innings of 15 runs as the Wolves folded up at 129 for nine in 20 overs. Besides Ruben (4 for 25), another main wrecker of the Wolves’ innings was spinner Aayran Khan ( 4 for 21).

Needing 130 to win, Vancouver Knights had a solid unbeaten second-wicket partnership between Corbin and Rezwan. Both completed their 50s before the victory target was achieved with nine wickets and 17 balls to spare.
In fact, Rezwan exhibited some big hitting including two hits to the maximum on consecutive balls in the 11th over. That virtually cleared the way for the Knights to record a mammoth win. Logan Beek was successful in controlling the run rate with his accurate spell conceding only 17 runs in his four overs.
Vancouver Knights now take on Toronto Nationals on Saturday for their fifth game.

Prabhjot Singh