If you are a franchise in the GT20 Canada tournament and not scoring at the rate of knots over 10 runs an over, you are pretty much going to end up in the losing side in the match, as is looking after the opening two games in the tourney. It’s what happened with Montreal Tigers against Winnipeg Hawks in their opening group match in the T20 tournament.
It was an unlikely pair of bowlers from Canada and USA, that brought upon the slide for Montreal in their chase of 203/4 put up by Winnipeg. USA’s Ali Khan (2/18 off 4) and Canada’s Junaid Siddique (3/35 off 3.5) combined well with Dwayne Bravo (3/24 off 4) to bowl out Montreal for 157 in the 19th over to win the match by a healthy margin of 46 runs.
Canada’s Rayyankhan Pathan impressed with his stroke play for Montreal as he scored a quickfire 20 off only 12 deliveries but the fate of the match was well beyond their grasp by the time Khan got out.
There was further changes to Montreal Tigers squad as Afghanistan’s Najibullah Zadran was replaced by West Indian player, Ashley Nurse for the tournament. That made the total number of squad changes to five, following national call-up’s for Pakistan’s Mohammad Hafeez and Sri Lankan trio of Thisera Perera, Dasun Shanaka and Isuru Udana.
The tournament brings exciting prospects for Canada and USA players, as the countries will compete against each other in the 2018 Auty Cup series and ICC WorldT20 Americas Group A qualifiers, later this year.
Brief Scores:
Winnipeg Hawks 203/4 in 20 overs (Ben Mcdermott 68, Darren Bravo 54, Lendl Simmons 36, David Miller 35, Lasith Malinga 2/19, George Worker 1/6) beat Montreal Tigers 157 all out in 18.5 overs (Sikandar Raza 30, George Worker 26, Ashley Nurse 26, Moises Henriques 23, Dwayne Bravo 3/24, Junaid Siddique 3/35, Ali Khan 2/18) by 46 runs
