Hurricanes surge to 86-run win

     Hobart Hurricanes 178 for 3 (Blizzard 62, Malik 45*) beat Northern Knights 92 (Styris 37, Hilfenhaus 3-14, Bollinger 3-22) by 86 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A calculated performance with the bat and ball helped Hobart Hurricanes rout Northern Knights by 86 runs in Raipur, keeping their chances of taking a knock-out spot alive.

While Knights' decision to bowl first after winning the toss seemed to have provided them with an advantage - given their recent form and knowledge of conditions in Raipur - Hurricanes made it work in their favour with key contributions from Tim Paine, Aiden Blizzard and Shoaib Malik. Blizzard and Malik added 100 runs for the third wicket and combined the dexterity of their strokeplay with smart batting in dew-heavy conditions to propel Hurricanes to 178 for 3.

Tim Southee and Trent Boult have been one of the most successful new-ball pairs in the tournament so far. Prior to this game, the pair had 13 wickets between them at less than 10 runs apiece but the rest of the Knights bowling line-up had not quite matched them effectively.

Five overs into their innings, Hurricanes appeared to be in a rut but Paine switched gears dramatically once the threat of Southee and Boult had been dealt with and the likes of Scott Kuggeleijn, Ish Sodhi and Jono Boult stepped in. Where the first five overs of the innings had seen the Hurricanes hobble to 20 for 1, the next five saw them accumulate 45 swift runs to quickly catch up with a healthy scoring rate.

Dew became an important factor as the game progressed and with the Knights bowlers struggling for grip and control, it became easier for Malik and Blizzard to build on Paine's efforts.

As in the game against Cape Cobras, Aiden Blizzard was the lucky recipient of a reprieve, this time from Sodhi who failed to hold on to a caught-and-bowled chance. Blizzard was on 2 off 3 balls and he took his time settling into the partnership, allowing Malik to steer the innings initially. The second half of their century stand - which came off 50 balls - had Blizzard pulling out the shots, and he stormed to his fifth T20 fifty during an over in which he stroked five fours off Trent Boult. By the time Boult and Southee returned to the attack, towards the end of the innings, there was little they could do to stop Hurricanes from amassing 76 off the last five overs.

While Blizzard spent some time settling down at the crease, Malik kept the innings going with deft footwork and quick wrists. The batsman had had a disappointing run with Hurricanes, but the form that had made him one of the top run-getters in the recent Caribbean Premier League came to the fore as he carved boundaries square on either side of the wicket and in the third-man region.

Hurricanes' bowling strategy paid off equally well as they opened the bowling with Ben Hilfenhaus and Joe Mennie. The ground staff in Raipur had worked hard to remove some of the dew during the innings break and it was imperative for Hurricanes to get the early wickets, to break into a middle order of a line-up that had been largely bolstered by the form of its top order. Mennie, in his third game for the side, provided the first breakthrough and he had some help from Ben Laughlin who pulled off an astonishing catch at point.

Then Hilfenhaus rattled the Knights chase, striking twice in an over to remove Kane Williamson - out playing a slog - and Daniel Flynn. A couple of overs later, BJ Watling missed a full toss and was adjudged lbw and despite Styris' efforts at stitching together partnerships, the team couldn't recover from a position of 19 for 4. Hilfenhaus finished with his best T20 figures of 3 for 14, while Mennie, Xavier Doherty and Doug Bollinger also chipped in with wickets. Styris became the second allrounder, after Kieron Pollard, to score more than 4000 runs and take more than 100 wickets in T20s during his 27-ball 37 and that perhaps was the brightest spark on an otherwise disappointing day for Knights.

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Kings XI show batting depth in victory

          Kings XI Punjab 146 for 5 (Maxwell 43, Perera 35*, Bailey 34*) beat Hobart Hurricanes 144 for 6 (Birt 28, Wells 28, Perera 2-17) by five wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

The loss of Mitchell Johnson to a rib injury had left Kings XI Punjab's bowling looking a little suspect ahead of their Champions T20 opener, but it proved a bit of a blessing in disguise for them, with his replacement playing a crucial hand in an five-wicket win over Hobart Hurricanes.

With the four-foreigner limit leaving no room for him in Kings XI's star-studded line-up, Thisara Perera didn't play a single game for them during their 2014 IPL campaign. With Johnson's absence giving him an opportunity, Perera grabbed it, taking two wickets in a three-over spell in which he conceded less than a run a ball before coming in to bat in a thorny situation and scoring an unbeaten 20-ball 35 that steered Kings XI to a win with 14 balls remaining.

The margin of victory looked fairly wide in the end, but it could have gone either way when Kings XI were 51 for 4 in the eighth over, chasing 147. This, though, was where the quality and depth of their batting came to the fore, with Glenn Maxwell playing strokes that belied a two-paced pitch on his way to a 25-ball 43 and George Bailey showing a cool head that his Big Bash League franchise could have done with during their innings, in putting on an unbroken 69 with Perera.

During the IPL, Kings XI had won six out of seven matches batting second, and had chased three 190-plus targets successfully. But on a greenish Mohali pitch where the back-of-a-length ball behaved a touch unpredictably - moving sideways when new, stopping on the batsmen later on, and often bouncing more than expected - their top order were quickly in trouble. Virender Sehwag's first-ball dismissal owed more to his impetuosity than to the conditions, but Wriddhiman Saha, David Miller and Manan Vohra were all discomfited by the extra bounce, and ended up skying catches to mid-on or mid-off while going hard at length balls.

Under these circumstances, Maxwell's innings showcased his rare talent, as he somehow found ways to slap the seamers inside-out or loft them back over their heads, while also playing one of his trademark reverse-sweeps against the legspinner Cameron Boyce.

It was an over from Boyce that reversed the momentum of the game back towards Kings XI, immediately after Maxwell had edged Evan Gulbis to the keeper. Perera found the third-man boundary via a streaky edge before hitting Boyce back over his head for six. Bailey then found the gap between deep midwicket and long-on when Boyce dropped his last ball short - 18 came off that over, and it left Kings XI needing 50 off 48.

Bailey and Perera kept their heads, attacked the loose balls - which for Perera was mostly whatever he could swing over the arc between midwicket and long-on - and the win, when it was achieved, came with time and wickets to spare, Bailey clouting Gulbis for successive fours in the 18th over.

Hurricanes' innings, after they had been sent in to bat, lacked a sustained period when the batsmen were on top of the bowlers. Ben Dunk and Aiden Blizzard, the two left-handers in their top three, struggled for timing early on and got themselves out just as they were beginning to look comfortable. Perera dismissed both of them, and both times the extra bounce caused them to mishit length or back-of-a-length balls, to deep and short cover respectively.

At 78 for 4 in the 13th over, Hurricanes seemed to be going nowhere when Jonathan Wells joined Travis Birt. They proceeded to add 52, with the left-handed Birt flourishing while hitting the legspinner Karanveer Singh with the spin and the right-handed Wells cutting and driving fluently through the off side. Just when the partnership was threatening to take Hurricanes to a biggish total, however, Wells ran himself out, and Kings XI tightened the screws once again, conceding only 14 runs off the last 14 balls of the innings.

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Steyn burst, Du Plessis 96 seal title for South Africa

South Africa 221 for 4 (du Plessis 96, de Villiers 57*) beat Australia 217 for 9 (Faulkner 40, Steyn 4-35) by six wickets 
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

South Africa won a first-ever tournament final against Australia after a Dale Steyn bowling masterclass handed them the advantage and an anchoring innings from Faf du Plessis - which ended just four short of what would have been a fourth century in the series - guided a composed chase. Steyn's four wickets, which included two in two balls, led a surge through the Australian middle-order in which South Africa plucked five wickets for 29 runs. South Africa paced the reply perfectly using du Plessis' purple patch as the pivot and winning with 9.1 overs remaining.

On a pitch that had not been used in the tournament so far, Steyn found movement early on and reverse-swing by the half-way stage. Australia could not muster anything similar, nor could they find a way to dislodge du Plessis who eventually fell searching for his milestone.

Swing was on offer from the outset but it did not account for the initial breakthrough; Phillip Hughes' overeagerness to show aggression did. He hit the first ball of Steyn's third over hard but AB de Villiers had moved himself out of slip and to short cover, where he collected a stinger. Similarly, after Wayne Parnell's opening over cost nine runs, Steve Smith tried to take the left-armer on and top-edged a pull that ballooned straight up for David Miller at mid-on.

South Africa spinners then enforced a stranglehold as Aaron Phangiso found bounce and Imran Tahir used the googly to good effect. Ultimately, it was Tahir's variation that accounted for George Bailey who chopped one on as he failed to pick the wrong 'un. Australia needed a batsman to partner Aaron Finch and Mitchell Marsh looked the candidate to do the job but the strike was seldom rotated. Finch reached his third fifty of the tournament and but Australia were stung when Steyn's second spell launched in full swing, literally.

Finch's growing unease was exposed when Steyn ripped through the bat-pad gap and wrenched the stumps from the ground. With his next ball, Steyn trapped Glenn Maxwell on the back foot to open Australia up. After a six off Tahir, Marsh's threat was also blunted when he inside-edged a Parnell delivery onto his stumps in the over before the Powerplay, leaving the lower-middle-order with a big job.

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India are No.1 ranked ODI side

Zimbabwe's win coupled with England's losses propel India to the top.

India have risen to No. 1 in the ODI rankings, while Australia toppled to fourth place after their defeat to Zimbabwe on Sunday.

Elton Chigumbura lifting his No. 10-ranked team to only their second success against Australia - the first in 31 years - has meant South Africa and Sri Lanka have leapfrogged the free-falling Australia, who were joint-No. 1 with India ahead of that match. India had equalled Australia's points tally following their victoryat Trent Bridge, in the third ODI against England on August 30.

However, the situation at the top remains quite fluid. India will retain their place at No. 1 if they beat England in the remaining two matches of the Royal London ODI series and Australia beat South Africa at least once over the coming week - either on Tuesday or, if they make the final, on Saturday. South Africa will move to the top if they win their two remaining league games and the subsequent final, even if India win the fourth and fifth ODIs.

Australia, too, have a chance at reclaiming No. 1 if they beat South Africa in their remaining league stage game and again in the final. Concurrently, though, India would have to lose at least one of their two ODIs to England.

India had been the No. 1 side when they visited New Zealand in January, but lost the top rank after failing to win a match there.

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Australia seal place in final with bonus-point win

Australia 282 for 7 (Marsh 86*, Hughes 85) beat South Africa 220 (Du Plessis 126, Marsh 2-23) by 62 runs
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Mitchell Marsh almost single-handedly took Australia into the tri-series final, first by plundering 86 off 51 balls, including 21 off a single Dale Steyn over, and then with two wickets to dent South Africa's chase. The bonus-point victory has guaranteed Australia spot in Saturday's showdown but put South Africa's in some danger. If they lose to Zimbabwe by a massive margin, so much so that the hosts gain a bonus point and improve the net run-rate, South Africa could be on an early flight home.

Marsh's blitz injected life into an Australian innings that was solid at the start but became stuck through the middle periods against a stranglehold of spin. He shared in a 71-run stand with Brad Haddin for the sixth wicket, which included taking 60 runs off five overs from the 44th over, as South Africa struggled for a death-bowling option. Those runs ultimately proved the difference between the two sides on a scruffy, sluggish surface on which run-scoring was laboured.

Less than a week after they gunned down a target of 328 against Australia, South Africa stumbled in search of a significantly smaller target. Only Faf du Plessis had some measure of what was required and only he managed a score more than 24. Du Plessis' second ODI century came six days after his first, but in much more trying circumstances because he lacked support.

South Africa's middle-order was untested thus far but in their first stern examination were exposed against pace and pressure, as they have been in the past. JP Duminy, David Miller and to a lesser extend Ryan McLaren left South Africa's long tail with too much to do and threw the spotlight on whether they were a batsman light or whether their bowling was what them down.

For nine-tenths of their time in the field, South Africa operated with discipline, from the opening passages where JP Duminy shared the new ball with Steyn, during the Phillip Hughes-Steven Smith stand of 85 for the second wicket and through the batting Powerplay in which they conceded only 20 runs and took two wickets.

South Africa's specialist spinners, Imran Tahir and Aaron Phangiso, gave away just 81 runs in 20 overs and contributed to a boundary drought that had the rope being breached just once in 10 overs. They limited Hughes and Smith to collecting runs judiciously rather than freely and only Hughes' sprightly start ensured his half-century was achieved at almost a run a ball, off 51 deliveries. They also snaffled three wickets to leave Australia in danger of a posting a total below 250.

But Marsh changed that when he switched from spectator to instigator as the innings neared its end. He tested the water when he drove Steyn through the covers for four and charged Tahir for six. What followed had not been done in ODI cricket before today. Marsh hit Steyn back over his head for six three times off three deliveries.

In a single over, Marsh's took his own score went from 29 to 50, off just 37 balls, which forced de Villiers to look elsewhere for a death bowler. McLaren offered little better. He missed the yorker on too many occasions and then relied on a short ball. Marsh punished all of it to give Australia a score they would have thought defendable, especially after they removed both South African openers inside ten overs of the reply.

Despite that, du Plessis stirred memories of last Wednesday's effort when he flat-batted Marsh over his head twice but those would have dimmed somewhat when de Villiers swept Nathan Lyon to backward square leg. With Duminy and du Plessis at the crease, South Africa had their best chance at recovery but Australia squeezed, allowing them to score at only four runs to the over. Duminy soon pulled one straight to fine leg and David Miller's defenses were shattered by a fiery Johnson short ball and his own lack of footwork to leave South Africa 101 for 5.

Du Plessis found some assistance from McLaren, who stayed with him for 12.2 overs and contributed 24 runs in a stand of 73. Du Plessis was the senior partner, slamming Mitchell Starc for six twice and lofting Lyon inside-out over cover to reach touching distance of his century. McLaren holed out before du Plessis could get to the milestone, which he reached off 94 balls in the next over.

By then South Africa's challenge was all but over, barring any fireworks from Steyn. He was run out, du Plessis trod on his own stumps and Johnson and Maxwell shared last rites to bowl South Africa out in 44 overs and pick Australia up after their defeat to Zimbabwe in the best way possible.

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