Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

and it's always worth switching off the effervescent Danny Morrison

Caught two games today...

Northern Warriors won again...but they let someone else shine today. Waseem Muhammad was their star with 76 off 34 balls to see them better Abu Dhabi's total of 123 off the last ball.

The evening game was a damp squib again. Kieron Pollard's 47 off 18 seemed to be a match-winning performance but Delhi were easily equal to Deccan's total of 122. They beat them with 11 balls to spare.

Bangla beat Pune in the opening game.

It helps that there are three Yorkshire representatives playing, but i've really got into the tournament. Kohler-Cadmore is having a fantastic campaign with two half centuries and was unlucky to hole out on 48 today.

Strangely enough there is a balance between batting and bowling. Obviously poor deliveries will get hit for a boundary, but get the bowling right and batsmen will be forced into playing a poor shot.

T10 is probably a perfect format for the Olympics, as matches will be closely run for the most part. Have 16 teams - 4 groups of 4 (3 games), top 2 through to Super 8s (another 3 games), top 2 through to Semi-Finals, then have the Bronze Medal and Final match played on the same day.

I'm just amazed that these T10 teams are packed to the gunwales with all the big hitting Durham players

oh wait....

Only saw the last game today, it follows a trend of top scoring players finishing on the losing side. Azam Khan's 22 ball 54 was the highest score in the match but it was not enough to see his Deccan side over the line against Northern Warriors 143.

In the other games Qalanders beat Maratha and Delhi annihilated Pune

Probably caught the most boring game of the day today as table topping Qalandars beat mid-table Bangla by 7 runs. They posted a low total of 104 but that proved too much for the Tigers. Sohail Akhtar kept up his good form for the Qalandars. He got another * next to his name. His fourth in five games.

In the other games Chris Gayle went on a mad one and Wayne Parnell got a 3-fer.

We are moving into the knockout stages of this tournament and today's first game saw two teams with not much of a chance to progress up against each other.

Deccan batted first and get 120 - about par - before they blasted Maratha, last year's champions, out for 91. Mosaddek Hossain made nearly half of his team's total with his 21 ball 44.

On the other end of the spectrum Delhi and Qalandars were certain to progress - and they rested some key players. Evin Lewis' 48 of 18 balls made light work of Qalandars total of 107. They needed just 7 overs.

The final match was a winner takes all battle between Abu Dhabi and Bangla. After a very poor start to the tournament, things have started to click for AD and they performed very well with both bat and ball. After posting 116, Jamie Overton then got the best figures of the tournament with 4-24.

If you'd have told me at the start of the week that I would have a favourite T10 League side I would have been dubious but I have fully bought into the Northern Warriors.

They played twice today. They lost the qualifier to Delhi but got a second chance to play in the final through playing third place Abu Dhabi. Fabian Allen became the second Northern Warrior of the day to get four wickets as Abu Dhabi were held to 114. Before yesterday's final match there had been no four wicket hauls - there have now been three.

Allen has had a good tournament. His breakdown looks like this:

2-0-11-2
2-0-39-1
1-0-8-2
1-0-20-1
0.4-0-7-0
2-0-13-4

I tried to watch a match this afternoon, but all I got was a second innings 3 over scorecard and a shed load of la liga football ads, brazil league ads, ordinary ads, assorted other football ads. This was while the match was progressing, so I'm guessing freesport lost the feed and just kept recycling the football ads. Naturally I moved on and didn't look back

It was the final day of this fun lil competition.

Abu Dhabi played Qalanders in the third place play off and defeated them. Qalanders' Daniel Bell-Drummond finished his season on a high with 46 to follow up his score of 70 yesterday. He ends the tournament averaging a fairly unimpressive 28.14. His display today was not enough to lift Qalanders to victory.

The show piece finale was anything but. Delhi and Northern Warriors finished the group stages tied on points whilst in the group stages the Warriors beat Delhi first time out whilst Delhi returned the favour in the reverse fixture. This parity was blown out of the water as Northern Warriors. Maheesh Theekshana has had only come into the team towards the end of the tournament but made Delhi pay as they were only able to get to 81 - the lowest total of the tournament. Theekshana got 3-14.

Marchant De Lange becomes the first man to take a T10 5fer as this inconsequential competition starts up again.

The unlikely record breaker got the figures of 5-23 as Abu Dhabi beat Bangla in the evening match today.

It was an allround strong performance for Abu Dhabi as Ireland's Paul Stirling also got the highest recorded score of the competition so far with 59 off 23.

Delhi beat the Northern Warriors in the earlier game.

Another three games today featuring a fair share of English excellence.

Angelo Perrera’s two run a ball 60 still saw him end up on the wrong side of history as his Chennai side were beaten by 24 runs by Deccan. The third wicket partnership for Chennai was worth 109 however the four batsmen around them ended up with a combined 8 runs.

In Match 2, Liam Livingstone continued his reputation as the latest white ball wonderchild with a 23 ball 68* to help Abu Dhabi to their second win in two days. For their opponents, the Northern Knights, it was their second loss in 2 days. Livingstone’s score today added to yesterday’s 14 sees him as the tournament’s highest run scorer.

It’s hard miles being a bowler in T10 but Adil Rashid made it easy with figures of 2-6 for Delhi as they fired Bangla out for a mere 96. The chase looked tricky at 9-2 and then 33-3 but Delhi got back on track for their second win out of 2 to join Abu Dhabi at the top of the table.

Marchant De Lange’s heroics from yesterday plus two further wickets today see him go 4 wickets clear at the top of the wicket taking table.

A further 9 games have been played since Saturday and Abu Dhabi seem the team to beat as they stand undefeated from their 5 games at the other end of the spectrum Chennai were bowled out (in 10 overs!!!) today to go for 5 losses in a row.

Marchant de Lange has never looked back from his opening night heroics and, despite missing a game for Abu Dhabi is still the leading wicket taker. The Northern Warriors' captain score 28 today in their victory over Chennai and took the lead in most runs scored. He has 182; 20 runs clear of second place.

Many people speak of Rahmanullah Gurbaz in hushed tones as the next white ball superstar. Those watching Delhi beat the Northern Warriors would be hard pressed to disagree. Chasing an above par 128, Gurbaz scored 70 from 32 in an opening stand of 116 to see Delhi 90% of the way there. They made a bit of a meal of it from there but still nicked the win in the end. This win moves Delhi up to second.

In the earlier game Bangla beat Deccan to bring them up tied on points.

Bangla pulled off a shock win against table toppers Abu Dhabi today despite Chris Gayle's first meaningful score for some while (52 off 23). Despite this, Abu Dhabi only got to 120 - 10 short of the target.

Bottom team Chennai look odds on to go the competition without winning a game as they got bowled all out for 57 before allowing Deccan to knock that off in 6 overs. Wanindu Hasaranga was the destroyer in chief with 3 wickets for Deccan. This takes him to the top of the wicket taking tally with 11.