JOIN USHenriques on song as NSW enter next round
The promising all-rounder, promoted to number four, hit a sparkling unbeaten half-century to help his side put up a fighting 130 for two in the company of opener Philip Hughes. Then, when Simon Katish threw him the ball, the right-arm quick obliged his skipper with figures of three for 23 to grab the man of the match award and power NSW to a comfortable 35-run win over Sussex Sharks at the Feroze Shah Kotla.
Chasing a stiff target under the conditions, Sussex were never in the hunt. They were rocked by a Brett Lee special in the very first over of their chase, skipper Ed Joyce playing all over and seeing his timber rattled. Where Lee battered the batsmen with his pace even on a slow wicket, Doug Bollinger was just as effective with his precision. With Henriques and to an extent Nathan Hauritz joining the action, the English side’s party was over.
With runs hard to come by and wickets falling at regular intervals, Sussex finished at 98 for eight from 20 overs. While NSW moved to the next phase, Sussex will need to win their next match against Diamond Eagles to remain in contention.
On a another slow and low pitch, where the ball reluctantly came on to the bat, New South Wales found their saviours in the obdurate Hughes and the swashbuckling Henriques after losing opener David Warner to a brilliant piece of fielding by Dwayne Smith and a promoted Daniel Smith to Piyush Chawla.
Skipper Katich, who opted to bat first, held himself back and promoted the hard-hitting Henriques in a bid to continue the left-right combination. That proved to be a masterstroke. The right-hander, who plays for Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League, used the long handle to good effect as leggie Chawla bore the brunt.
Chawla, who only in his previous over had provided the second and last breakthrough for Sussex, was clattered for 17 runs in the next, both Hughes and Henriques picking up a six each in the 11th over and injecting the much-needed urgency into the innings.
Henriques maintained the same tempo for the next couple of overs before slowing down considerably even as Hughes managed to find the ropes with playing strokes becoming increasingly difficult. Both batsmen reached well-deserved fifties and were involved in an undefeated 90-run association for the third wicket, but the duo would still have been left a little disappointed with its failure to make any substantial gains in the last five overs which yielded 35 runs compared to 45 in the previous five overs. More tellingly, the last four overs didn’t yield a single boundary, but that mattered little in the final analysis.
SCORE BOARD
NEW SOUTH WALES: David Warner (run out) 14 (18b, 2x4), Philip Hughes (not out) 62 (64b, 4x4, 1x6), Daniel Smith c Martin-Jenkins b Chawla 2 (5b), Moises Henriques (not out) 51 (33b, 3x4, 2x6). Extras (LB-1) 1. Total (for 2 wkts, 20 overs) 130.
Fall of wickets: 1-35 (Warner), 2-40 (D Smith).
Bowling: Robin Martin-Jenkins 2-0-14-0, Yasir Arafat 4-0-23-0, James Kirtley 3-0-15-0, Chad Keegan 4-0-25-0, Piyush Chawla 2-0-21-1, Rory Hamilton Brown 1-0-8-0, Dwayne Smith 4-0-23-0.
Runs during Power Play: 1-6 overs: 30/0.
SUSSEX SHARKS: Chris Nash c Clark b Henriques 24 (30b, 1x4), Ed Joyce b Lee 0 (1b), Rory Hamilton-Brown st D Smith b S Smith 13 (24b, 1x4), Dwayne Smith b Bollinger 13 (15b, 2x4), Joe Gatting (run out) 9 (16b), Piyush Chawla c Hughes b Henriques 0 (1b), Yasir Arafat b Hauritz 1 (3b), Andy Hodd c S Smith b Henriques 12 (10b, 2x4), Chad Keegan (not out) 10 (16b, 1x4), Robin Martin-Jenkins (not out) 2 (4b). Extras (B-5, LB-4, W-2) 11. Total (for 8 wkts, 20 overs) 95.
Fall of wickets: 1-1 (Joyce), 2-26 (Hamilton-Brown), 3-49 (Smith), 4-64 (Nash), 5-64 (Chawla), 6-68 (Gatting), 7-68 (Arafat), 8-83 (Hodd).
Bowling: Brett Lee 4-1-8-1 (w-2), Doug Bollinger 4-0-13-1, Moises Henriques 4-0-23-3, Stuart Clark 3-0-20-0, Steven Smith 4-0-19-1, Nathan Hauritz 1-0-3-0.
Runs during: Power Play: 1-6 overs: 26/1.