2018 HKT20 Blitz Day 5 Preview by Tim Cutler
The battle at the business end of 2018 HKT20 Blitz has heated up with 3 teams on top of the points table with equal points and hence, the two group matches on 10th Feb 2018 will most likely decide the toppers in the points table.
2018 HKT20 Blitz Feb 10th Matches:
10am – Galaxy Gladiators Lantau v City Kaitak
2pm v Hung Hom JD Jaguars v HKI United
Game 8 – likey XI – fantasy in bold (eleventh player Osama 7.5)
| Galaxy Gladiators Lantau | City Kaitak |
| Muhammad Balal | Anshuman Rath |
| Kumar Sangakkara (c) (SL), | Kyle Coetzer (Sco) |
| Cameron Delport (RSA), | Jamie Atkinson (W/K) |
| Anton Devcich (NZ) (f-vc) | Ravi Bopara |
| Shahid Wasif, | Aizaz Khan |
| James Franklin (NZ) | Waqas Barkat |
| Jade Dernbach (ENG) | Sohail Tanvir (Pak) |
| Imran Arif | Rayad Emrit (WI) |
| Daniel Pascoe | Samuel Badree |
| Haroon Arshad | Sigfried Wei |
| Li Kai-ming (Dragon) | Mudassar Hussein |
Lantau are presented with a selection headache here as they have to bring Li Kai-ming – as per the event conditions for the development of HK Chinese cricket talent – but who do they drop? Pascoe took a wicket last match, Arif bowled well, and Moner Dar has be good with bat and in the field. A real tough one but even though Wasif hasn’t fired with the bat I think Moner needs to make way.
Likewise with City who need to bring in Sigfried Wei who will surely come in for Raag Kapur.
This game may have seemed like an easy pick back at the start of the tournament but not now! Yee will come in for Tanveer for the Dragon’s requisite match.
I feel Lantau will continue on their march and pip Kaitak here on the back of a Sangakkara masterclass. In saying that, we haven’t seen the best of Rath yet so that could mess my prediction up!
Game 9 – likey XI – fantasy in bold
| Hung Hom JD Jaguars | HKI United |
| Nizakat Khan | Kamran Akmal (Pak) |
| Kinchit Shah | Ryan Ten Doeschate (NED) |
| Rikki Wessels | Hussain Talat (Pak) |
| Johan Botha (RSA/Sydney Sixers) | Yasim Murtaza |
| Roelof van der Merwe (Ned) (f-c) | Luke Ronchi (NZ) |
| Darren Sammy (WI) | Tanwir Afzal |
| Ben Laughlin (Aus) (f-vc) | Ahsan Abbasi |
| Ninad Shah | Zeeshan Ali |
| Nadeem Ahmed | Ehsan Khan |
| Kyle Christie | Daniyal Bukhari |
| Damien Yee | Mohammad Irfan (Pak) |
Hong Kong Island United will desperately want to open their account in their third match – and come up against a Jaguars team keen to turn around their fortunes from their surprise loss to Lantau on Friday morning in a very high scoring encounter.
It’s really hard to go past the Jaguars to win this one. Roelof van der Merwe collected major fantasy points in the previous match and could very well continue his good form in the next one. Wessels and Botha have been performing very well for JD Jaguars and are must picks in the fantasy teams. Luke Ronchi has had a quiet tournament so far by his standards and must be itching to get one good game under his belt. Expect him to fetch some good fantasy points.
HKI United are without any wins in the tournament so far and another loss will effectively end their challenge even if the other results go their way. Expect HKI United bowlers to put in a big performance tomorrow against a team, who are considered one of the Title favourites.
