ICL India seal convincing win over World XI

Hyderabad: ICL World will hope their memories are not diligent enough to remind them of this defeat.

Apart from the toss nothing went right for the World XI as ICL India inflicted on them an embarrassing 44-run defeat in another match of the Indian Cricket League’s World Series Twenty20 tournament at Lal Bahadur stadium, Hyderabad.

World XI were never in the game chasing a daunting 163 set by the Indians earlier in the day. They treaded carefully putting up 21 in four overs. Abu Nechim cranked up serious pace and got the first breakthrough by ratting Lou Vincent’s timber for eight.

ICL World slipped further when Matthew Elliott departed with the score reading 30/2. The Indians were full of zip in the field choking the singles and cutting off certain boundaries. Finally Thiru Kumaran landed the knockout punch by claiming the colossal Chris Cairns for two.

After 10 overs the World XI were placed at 55/3, needing another 109 off 60 balls at nearly 11 runs per over.

Apart from Marvan Atapattu, who briefly tried to stem the rot with 20, none of the other batsmen looked the part today as they perished trying one shot too many. Ali Murtaza and man of the match Stuart Binny shared two wickets apiece.

In contrast the ICL India total was built on percentage cricket rather than flash. It was not one or two breezy knocks but useful contributions from the middle-order that propelled them to 163.