Blues Beat Indians In Chennai

Blues Beat Indians In Chennai

Abu Nechim (left) took three early wickets to give the Mumbai Indians a chance against New South Wales.

©Action Images

New South Wales 101-5 (Smith 45no, Nechim 3-23) beat
Mumbai Indians 100-7 (Franklin 42no) by five wickets.
Champions League T20, Chennai
Scorecard

New South Wales made hard work of beating the Mumbai Indians in today’s Group A game in Chennai.

Mumbai won the toss on a slow, used pitch and elected to bat, but were soon in trouble as Stuart Clark and Mitchell Starc took three early wickets to reduce them to nine for three in the third over. They never really recovered from this early setback despite a determined, but certainly not fluent, unbeaten 51-ball 42 from James Franklin and could reach only 100 for seven from their 20 overs. Patrick Cummins was the talking point with the ball for the Blues as he ended with figures of one for 13 from his four overs and bowled with pace and subtle changes of pace to outfox the Mumbai batsmen.

If New South Wales thought that the run chase was a formality then they were soon given a reality check by Abu Nechim who took three early wickets and helped reduce them to 28 for five at one stage. Fortunately for the Australians, Steve Smith was on hand to calm any nerves with an unbeaten 45 and he, along with wicket-keeper Ben Rohrer (26 not out from 28), guided them home without any further loss of wickets.

The result means that New South Wales have two wins from three matches and blows Group A wide open, with Mumbai having played all of their games and also having two wins to put them on five points.

This evening’s match is between Chennai Super Kings and Trinidad & Tobago and begins at 2000 local time (1430 GMT).

© Cricket World 2011