India Capitals sealed a convincing seven-wicket win over Manipal Tigers in their Legends League Cricket 2022 encounter at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack on Thursday, September 29.
Influential knocks from Hamilton Masakadza (68 not out) and Ashley Nurse (21 not out from 11 balls) helped the Capitals chase the Tigers’ score of 161 with 16 balls to spare.
India Capitals won the toss and elected to bowl first. Ishwar Pandey replaced Pankaj Singh in the Capitals’ playing XI while Lance Klusener started his first game for Manipal Tigers.
Mitchell Johnson drew the first blood as he dismissed Tatenda Taibu for five runs. The left-armer’s back of a length delivery pushed Taibu to pull a shot towards point, where Ashley Nurse took the catch.
Manipal Tigers, however, put pressure on the India Capitals bowlers as Jesse Ryder (79) and Mohammed Kaif (67) hit half-centuries and stitched a 126-run partnership for the second wicket to take the Tigers past 150 in 18.1 overs.
Liam Plunkett, having given away 23 runs from his three overs, dismissed Ryder and Kaif in the final over of his spell to ease the tension in the India Capitals camp.
Rajat Bhatia claimed back-to-back wickets of Corey Anderson (4) and Pardeep Sahu (0) as the Manipal Tigers completed their first innings at 161/5.
India Capitals’ run chase of 162 began with skipper Gautam Gambhir being dismissed for 15 runs by Chris Mpofu.
The Capitals would lose their second wicket in the final powerplay over, as the in-form Solomon Mire (28) hit a Dilhara Fernando delivery straight towards Mpofu at deep square leg.
Hamilton Masakadza took the driver’s seat for India Capitals as he slammed his second half-century of Legends League Cricket 2022 in 28 balls.
Masakadza remained unbeaten on 68 as Ashley Nurse’s late cameo of 21 runs in 11 balls, including a six for the winning runs, helped India Capitals complete a seven-wicket victory in style.
Hamilton Masakadza was adjudged the Legend of the Match for his flamboyant performance with the bat as the Zimbabwean is now the leading run-getter (173 runs) for the Capitals in LLCT20.
