T&T wins first Champions League T20 match in Group A

Update: 10/04/2011 – T&T wins final game with 2 balls to spare…

but finished 3rd in the group (2 wins, 2 losses) and were eliminated. A great individual performance of an unbeaten 135 by David Warner of New South Wales (NSW) propelled them to the top of the group after thrashing Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by 46 runs (large total in a T20 match).

 T&T wins first Champions League T20 match in Group A

Trinidad & Tobago (T&T), this year’s T20 representative from the Caribbean, and our best T20 team since the inception, looked good on a bad pitch to carve out a 12 run win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK).  Batting first, T&T made 123-7 from their 20 overs, with opener William Perkins scoring 34 from 28 balls, and Kevon Cooper 28 from 10 balls.  Chennai, in reply could only make 111-7, with Trinidadian Dwayne Bravo scoring an unbeaten 32 from 22 balls, man of the match Sunil Narine taking 3 wickets for 8 runs from 4 overs, and Kevon Cooper 1-14 also from 4 overs.

So, here’s how the group stage stacks up for T&T:

Group A

Some blame captain Darren Ganga for the predicament that T&T is in.  They believe it was his field placement decision on the final ball of their second game that cost T&T the victory…  Both games 1 and 2 were close, and looked in T&T’s favor, but game 2 was the more bitter pill to swallow.  Now, with only 1 game remaining, T&T must win and get LOTS of help in order to advance.  In any case, stranger things have happened.

In other news, West Indies is in Bangladesh without Gayle for a T20I, 2 ODIs and 2 Test matches.  Even with the weak team sent, the West Indies should gain at least a draw in all formats of the game… but only time will tell of course.