SHARJAH: The Sindhis suffered a second heartbreak in a matter of days at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
On Tuesday, against the Northern Warriors, Shane Watson’s side came up short, losing in the last ball.
On Thursday, they replicated that with another last-ball defeat to Bengal Tigers which has left them with just two points (one win from five matches) and left them at the bottom of the Super League standings of the T10 League.
After some poor batting performances by the Sindhis in their previous matches they finally got to a decent total of 134. And this was achieved with their top scorer Shane Watson chipping in with only six runs.
Thanks to Samiullah Shinwari and Anton Devcich, together they revived the Sindhis with an 86-run partnership.
Devcich launched into the Tigers’ attack to compile 64 from 23 balls. His innings was embellished with six fours and five sixes. Shinwari, on the other hand, maintained the momentum. His assault on the Bengal bowlers earned him 44 runs from 26 balls and it came through two sixes and four boundaries.
Bengal Tigers had lost badly to Pakhtoons in their last match. Another defeat could have hampered their title aspirations. But Jason Roy didn’t let that happen. He and Sunil Narine gave their side the perfect launchpad with a 61-run partnership. Narine departed for 22 but there was no stopping Roy. His 64 from 35 balls with six fours and five sixes put him in third spot in the batsmen’s standings.
The job was not over yet. After Roy was out it came down to Bengal needing 11 from six balls. Mohammad Nabi was facing Umaid Asif and skied his first ball to wide mid-on where Shinwari made a mess of it. The batsmen ran two. The next ball was a carbon copy of the first where Shinwari again dropped his countrymate. Again two runs were added to the score. Nabi then took a single off the third ball. Sam Billings tried to pull the fourth ball but it hit him on the pads for a leg bye. Needing five runs from two balls, Nabi hits two fours to wrap up the match.
