De Villiers Bowls Eagles Past Sussex Sharks

De Villiers Bowls Eagles Past Sussex Sharks

Dwayne Smith (right) saw his stumps broken in the Super Over, just as he did here against Somerset on T20 Finals Day.

©Action Images / Andrew Boyers Livepic

Diamond Eagles 119-4 & 9-1 beat
Sussex Sharks 119-7 & 0-2 by nine runs (Super Over)
Airtel Champions League Twenty20, Delhi

The Diamond Eagles needed a bowl-out to dispose of Sussex and make sure that both South African sides joined both Australian sides in the second phase of the Champions League.

After both teams had reached 119 in their 20 overs, Cornelius de Villiers dismissed Dwayne Smith and Rory Hamilton-Brown in the Super Over eliminator after his batsmen had managed nine from their extra six balls.

Batting first in the regulation game, few of the Sussex batsmen could settle, with Joe Gatting's 25 and Ed Joyce's 21 hauling them up to their score, which would have been enough to beat both Wayambe and Victoria earlier in the day, as Dillon du Preez and de Villiers picked up two wickets.

The Eagles were then indebted to an innings of 65 in 62 balls from Rossouw and a blast of 14 in 13 balls at the death from McLaren, an innings that included a boundary from the last ball of the 20 to level the scores.

In the Super Over, McLaren and Rossouw then managed to get nine runs off of Yasir Arafat, the one wicket falling when they tried to steal a second run from the final delivery and the almost inevitable run out followed.

Nine was enough as de Villiers beat Smith and Hamilton-Brown's attempted cut strokes to break the stumps with consecutive deliveries and end the game in emphatic style.

The Eagles progress along with New South Wales from the group while Sussex join Otago and Wayamba in making an early exit from the competition.

© Cricket World 2009