Galaxy Gladiators made all their hard work done by their bowlers go in vain as their batters failed to chase down a modest total by Kowloon Cantons in the 2nd match played on 07th Feb 2018 at Mission Road.
Action continues on Thursday, with 2 big matches and we preview the matches along with our likely picks for probable starting XI and fantasy points scoring.
10am – Hung Hom JD Jaguars v Kowloon Cantons
Likely Teams (fantasy players in bold)
| Hung Hom JD Jaguars | Kowloon Cantons |
| Nizakat Khan | Dwayne Smith (WI) |
| Kinchit Shah | Babar Hayat (c) (fantasy C) |
| Rikki Wessels | Waqas Khan |
| Roelof van der Merwe (Ned) | Samit Patel (ENG) (fantasy VC) |
| Johan Botha (RSA/Sydney Sixers) | Ashar Zaidi |
| Darren Sammy (WI) | Adeel Shafique |
| Ben Laughlin (Aus) | Ryan Buckley |
| Nenad Shah | Wahab Riaz (Pak) |
| Nadeem Ahmed | Paul van Meekeren (Ned) |
| Tanveer Ahmed | Ehsan Nawaz |
| Kyle Christie | Bobby Chan (Dragon) |
2pm – HKI United v Galaxy Gladiators Lantau
Likely teams (fantasy players in bold)
| HKI United | Galaxy Gladiators Lantau |
| Kamran Akmal (Pak) | Karandeep Singh |
| Ryan Ten Doeschate (NED) (fantasy C) | Cameron Delport (RSA), |
| Hussain Talat (Pak) | Kumar Sangakkara (c) (SL), |
| Yasim Murtaza | Anton Devcich (NZ) |
| Luke Ronchi (NZ) | Shahid Wasif |
| Tanwir Afzal | James Franklin (NZ) (Fantasy VC) |
| Ahsan Abbasi | Jade Dernbach (ENG) |
| Zeeshan Ali | Moner Dar |
| Ehsan Khan | Imran Arif |
| Daniyal Bukhari | Daniel Pascoe |
| Mohammad Irfan (Pak) | Li Kai-ming (Dragon) |
Will all teams now having played a game each, have a fair idea of each franchise’s preferred setup. I can’t see too many changes to HHJ excepting the imminent inclusion of their HK Dragon at some point. In other sides I think HKIU will swap David Wiese for Hussain Talat as the only major change.
Wednesday sees two intriguing match ups. In the morning we have HHJ v KC who are both coming off first up victories, with the Jaguars the more impressive performance. The Cantons lost their stars Dwayne Smith and Babar Hayat cheaply in their win over Lantau that showed the depth of talent they have in store.
The match up with the Jaguars is a mouthwatering one – and after round one form, this might just be a dress rehearsal for Sunday’s final. We haven’t seen Smith and Hayat both fail twice in a row before – I think at least one will fire and this will inspire a Cantons win.
Lantau take on HK Island United who will both be hoping to make up for their first up losses. I can’t see the class of HKI United being down for long and I expect them to come back strongly over the top of Lantau.
Despite losing openers Dwayne Smith (10) and Babar Hayat (17) cheaply, defending champs Kowloon Cantons through Waqas Khan & Samit Patel were able to post a respectable 158 all out. Ashar Zaidi was 25 not out from 17 balls.
James Franklin was the star with the ball taking 3/21. 18 year old Hong Kong born Haroon Arshad also impressed taking two wickets along with Imran Arif who also collected two Gladiators scalps.
Despite some enterprising hitting from Amandeep Singh early on, the Lantau chase never really threatened the Cantons’ total. The continually impressive Samit Patel opened his HK T20 Blitz wicket account with the prized wicket Kumar Sangakkar caught and bowled.
While James Franklin & Moner Dar provided a glimmer of hope with some rearguard runs Wahab Riaz blew them away with 4 for 14 from his spell. Zaidi was also superb taking 2 for 15 from his 3 overs.
