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The classy left handed JP Duminy single handedly won the match for Cape Cobras today with an unbeaten knock of 99 today at Bengaluru. With 9 runs required to win from the final over, JP Duminy sent the second ball of the over for a six to settle the match in favour of the Cobras. He lost the strike in the next ball having reduced the equation to 1 from 3. Poor JP Duminy was left stranded on 99 with just the one run to win. It was the opening game of the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 2009 that saw the South African domestic side beating the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium by 5 wickets with just a couple of balls to spare.
It was a challenging target of 181 set by the hometeam which was chased down succesfully thanks to JP Duminy’s heroics. The left hander kept on going with a combination of sweet timing and power hitting to score an unbeaten 99 from 52 balls with 8 fours and 5 sixes. The Cobras had an inauspicious start with star opener Herschelle Gibbs sent back for a first-ball duck by a perfect outswinger from Praveen Kumar. The Indian medium pacer impressed with the new ball and finished with decent figures of 4-0-32-3. Skipper Anil Kumble failed to deliver the goods along with fellow spinner Reelof van der Merwe on a track that took turn. However, the Cobras’ innings saw the ball skidding through nicely than the first half.
Earlier in the evening, Kumble won the toss and elected to bat first on a brownish looking pitch. Robin Uthappa provided the impetus at the start with a lucky innings of 51 from 39 balls with 7 fours and 2 sixes. Uthappa often got away with miscued hits and the fielding from the Cobras was pathetic with sitters getting dropped in this Group C encounter. The finishing touches to the innings were given by New Zealander -Ross Taylor who finished with a breezy unbeaten cameo of 53 from 24 that had 4 fours and 4 sixes. Cobras’ opening bowler Charl Langeveldt was the pick of the bowlers but unfortunately had to leave the field with a jarred shoulder while trying to take a diving catch in the outfield.