Warriors Beat Bangalore To Open Champions League

Warriors Beat Bangalore To Open Champions League

Juan Theron took four wickets as the Warriors opened the tournament with a last-ditch win

©REUTERS / Action Images

Chevrolet Warriors 173-7 (Prince 74, Botha 42) beat
Royal Challengers Bangalore 172-8 by 3 wickets
Champions League T20, Bangalore
Scorecard

The opening game of the 2011 Champions League Twenty20 went down to the wire and the Chevrolet Warriors beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore by three wickets.

Juan Theron took four for 29 as the Bangalore side looked they had enough when they scored 172 for eight but a half-century from Ashwell Prince helped the Warriors clinch victory.

He was dismissed with the finish line in sight and it needed both Nicky Boje (7 not out) and Wayne Parnell (6 not out) to hit their first ball for boundaries to keep the game alive.

Parnell then scrambled two runs from the final ball to take the Warriors home despite the best efforts of the Challengers, for whom Sreenath Aravind, Daniel Vettori and Abhimanyu Mithun all took two wickets.

Prince, who hit 74 in 55 balls and Johan Botha, who blasted 42 in 24 balls including two sixes in one Chris Gayle over, rescued the South African side from 82 for four with a rapid 73-run partnership.

Despite their outstanding partnership, a rally from Bangalore took the game to the wire but it was the Warriors who held their nerve.

Earlier, most of the Bangalore top order contributed to set up a very competitive score on a good pitch at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Mayank Agarwal fell without scoring but the big hitters that the Challengers boast did not disappoint. Gayle slammed 23 in 14 balls, Saurabh Tiwary made 28 in 15 balls and Mohammad Kaif 26 in 20 deliveries.

Virat Kohli (34) and AB de Villiers (31) were more measured but still scored at more than a run a ball before Theron dismissed Kohli, Kaif, Vettori (8) and Mithun (4) to get the Warriors back into the match.

Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Parnell, Botha and Boje all took a wicket apiece and three of those would then go on to prove their worth with the bat as the Warriors made a winning start to the competition.

© Cricket World 2011