A fighting half century from Moises Henriques and a collective bowling unit effort led by Peter Siddle gave Montreal Tigers their first win in GT20 Canada as they defeated Edmonton Royals by 15 runs in a closely contested match.
The wearing track at Maple Leaf Cricket Club showed it’s colours as the low scoring match saw Montreal defend their total of 129 to register their first points in the tournament after 4 matches.
Edmonton Royals had Montreal Tigers in early trouble as they were reduced to 30/3 in the 6th over. Crucial partnerships of 52 runs for the 4th wicket between Henriques (50 off 49) and Sikandar Raza (20 off 17) and 36 runs for the 5th wicket between Henriques and Afghanistan’s Najibullah Zadran (22 n.o off 17) took them to 129/6 from their quota of 20 overs. USA Captain Ibrahim Khaleel too contributed 10 from 7 deliveries towards the end of the innings.
Wayne Parnell was the pick of the bowlers on display for Edmonton with 3/23 off his 4 overs.
Luke Ronchi (30 off 19) gave a flying start to the innings but wickets kept tumbling at the other end. Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichhane produced yet another good display of accurate leg-spin bowling and picked up the opening wicket of Andre Fletcher to return figures of 1/16 off his 4 overs with yet another maiden to his name.
Lasith Malinga (2/29) and Kevon Cooper (2/27) provided good support to Peter Siddle, who wrecked the Edmonton batting line-up with a fiery spell of 4/13 off his 3.1 overs. UAE’s Shaiman Anwar tried to hold the innings together with a patient knock of 24 off 28 deliveries but once he got out in the 16th over, the remaining batting line-up could not go beyond 114 and got bowled out in their 20th over.
