Related Links : Champions League Twenty20 2009 | Scorecard
New South Wales not only beat South African team Eagles comprehenively by 53 runs but also showed that they were the red hot favourites to win this Champions League. Their Skipper Simon Katich led the way with a well paced half century followed up with two brilliant run outs.
Katich won the toss and elected to bat first on a low bouncing and slow paced Feroz Shah Kotla pitch in Delhi. New South Wales did extremely well to reach a total of 144/6 in the allotted 20 overs. Katich, who came in at no.3 timed the ball sweetly and came up with some classy shots to top score with 53 from 41 balls with 6 fours and 2 sixes. Moises Henriques provided some sort of momentum with a cameo of 27 from 19 balls which included 3 sixes. Eagles bowling was more of the restrictive type than the wicket taking one.
Although it wasn’t a huge target, Eagles simply collapsed due to the high quality bowling attack from the New South Wales Blues. The Eagles were up against as many as four Australian international bowlers in Brett Lee, Doug Bollinger, Stuart Clark and Nathan Hauritz. Lee and Clark suffocated the scoring by bowling wicket to wicket and the Eagles were out of the match in quick time with a score of 24 for 5 in the 7th over. They managed to survive the 20 overs but couldn’t even register a 100! The 91 runs they scored were largely because of a valiant 40 from left hander Ryan McLaren.
Brett Lee was fast and furious and his bowling figures were a mean 4-1-14-1. Stuart Clark on the other hand utilized the slow wicket that suited his nagging medium pace and he often took advantage of the low bounce to pick up 3 for 12 in his 4 overs. For Hauritz, there was no challenge at all from the batsmen as the job was already done by Lee and Clark, the offie took 1 for 13 in his 4 overs. The Man of the Match award went to Simon Katich.