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Match Facts

Tim Southee wants to bowl in the Powerplays after his strong performance in Christchurch•AFP

Wednesday, March 3, Napier
Start time 1400 (0100 GMT)

The Big Picture

Life in a more sedate lane will begin in Napier after a frenetic finish to the two-match Twenty20 series, which left everyone in New Zealand breathless after Sunday’s Super Over victory. While the short affairs were leading to the World Twenty20 in the Caribbean late next month, the five ODIs for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy act as a more leisurely warm-up for the two Tests.The hosts’ triumph in Christchurch ended Australia’s summer winning streak and gave Michael Clarke his first loss in charge of the Twenty20 team. Ricky Ponting and a few 50-over reinforcements have arrived and will try to replicate the form that led to convincing series wins against Pakistan and West Indies at home.New Zealand’s last engagement in this format was a 3-0 success over Bangladesh and they are on a five-game winning streak, but they face a step up in class. After one poor Twenty20 in Wellington they showed they can eyeball Australia and if Brendon McCullum inspires his team-mates to fire the contest could be even.

Form guide (most recent first)

New Zealand WWWWW
Australia WWNWW

Watch out for…

Tim Southee missed the first Twenty20 but starred in the second with a series of nerveless yorkers that even managed to restrict the rampaging Cameron White. Southee is only 21 but the performance showed he is a classy operator and he has asked to be used during the Powerplays in the ODIs. With Shane Bond the attack leader, New Zealand need someone like Southee to build pressure throughout his 10 overs.Ricky Ponting has had to get used to regular periods away from his side since retiring from the Twenty20 outfit last year. He got to Napier before the majority of the squad and will be keen to stamp his influence on the series. The last time he batted at McLean Park his 141 off 127 balls raced Australia to 347 for 5. Given Ponting’s recent troubles with the short ball, his battle with Bond, who has dismissed him six times in 10 ODIs, will be essential viewing.

Team news

New Zealand have two new faces from their Twenty20 unit, with Scott Styris available to beef up the batting order with Neil Broom. The hosts have their usual dilemma over whether to include two spinners or call on an extra seamer. Daryl Tuffey was left out on Sunday so he is not weighed down by the carnage caused by Australia as they equalled New Zealand’s 214 in 20 overs.New Zealand (possible) 1 Brendon McCullum (wk), 2 Peter Ingram, 3 Martin Guptill, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Scott Styris, 6 Jacob Oram, 7 James Franklin, 8 Daniel Vettori (capt), 9 Tim Southee, 10 Shane Bond, 11 Daryl Tuffey.Australia’s squad has undergone a makeover with the arrival of Ponting, Doug Bollinger, James Hopes, Clint McKay and Adam Voges. Expect Ponting and Bollinger to come back in, while Hopes is also likely to figure. There is no Shaun Marsh, who is not being replaced after a back injury ruled him out, so Brad Haddin should keep his spot at the top with Shane Watson.Australia (possible) 1 Shane Watson, 2 Brad Haddin (wk), 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Michael Clarke, 5 Cameron White, 6 Michael Hussey, 7 James Hopes, 8 Mitchell Johnson, 9 Nathan Hauritz, 10 Ryan Harris, 11 Doug Bollinger.

Pitch and conditions

Napier is a ground that is usually full of runs and a good pitch is expected along with a crowd of between 8,000 and 10,000, which would make it about three-quarters full. A maximum of 27C is forecast and conditions should become sunny later in the day.

Stats and trivia

• Shane Bond averages 14.45 against Australia, having taken 35 wickets in 12 games, and it is his best mean against major nations. His career average is an impressive 20.87 over 77 ODIs.
• Michael Hussey’s average over 10 ODIs in New Zealand is 122.33, including a top score of 105
• In 118 ODIs against Australia, New Zealand have won 32 and lost 81
• The Chappell-Hadlee Trophy has been contested five times: Australia lead 2-1 with two drawn campaigns
• There have been three New Zealand-Australia games in Napier and Australia have been successful in two of them
  

  Quotes

  “They’re in their home country, they’re on their home turf, they’ll be really hard to beat. They have a very good one-day side, a very dangerous side.”
  Cameron White
  “I’m not too worried about wearing one – until everyone talks about it happening. It’s just an instinct thing. The way the game is going now, you’ve got to be able to access that area behind the keeper. As good as bowlers are now at hitting their yorkers, you’ve got to have some sort of method to counter them.”
  Brendon McCullum on the philosophy behind his “McScoop” over or past the wicketkeeper

Members of Pakistan’s senate standing committee on sports believe, on the evidence of the inquiry committee report they have seen on Pakistan’s tour to Australia, that “one or more” players in the national side are involved in deliberately under-performing for money, though they admit concrete evidence is lacking. The Pakistan Cricket Board said that the conclusions and the comments were made by the senators on their own.The senate standing committee members – Tahir Mashadi, Abdul Ghaffar and Haroon Akhtar – met the PCB at Gaddafi Stadium on Monday afternoon and held a three-hour meeting in which they were given a presentation by board officials on the report. Last week the board acted on the report’s recommendations and punished seven leading players.”We were given a presentation today by the PCB, including video, audio evidence and the matter was discussed thoroughly with them,” Akhtar told Cricinfo. “The PCB has done the investigation well and has been thorough with it. One or more people, we believe, is directly involved in some form of match-fixing and others indirectly.”There is more than just one problem in the team. There is discipline, there are issues of grouping, there are instances of people deliberately under-performing to undermine captains and there are instances of people making lapses clearly where monetary interests are involved. If there is a lapse that nobody can explain or answer and there is no logical reason to it, then the assumption is that these are lapses where monetary interests are involved. There is no concrete evidence because you cannot track money changing hands.”Asked specifically whether the senators’ conclusions were shared by the board, Akhtar said, “Members of the PCB were involved in the investigation. We saw video clips where the investigation was done by the PCB. There were several experts involved in the making of this report and were there in the meeting today and the conclusion that we reached was also reached by some of the experts involved.”Cricinfo understands, however, from officials involved in the committee and the subsequent report that match-fixing wasn’t even within the terms of reference of their investigation. The committee never felt that there was any problem with match-fixing after their investigation, honing in instead on issues of discipline and friction within the side. It is also believed that after the meeting on Monday, board officials specifically and repeatedly requested senators not to go public with their beliefs and conclusions about match-fixing. The senators, however, held a press conference immediately after their meeting in which they made their conclusions public.The board officially refused to comment on the conclusions. “We have done our work, what decisions were made are public, the decisions were taken for the good of cricket and our job is now finished,” Wasim Bari, chief operating officer PCB, told Cricinfo.Bari was head of the six-man committee that compiled the report. “We gave them a presentation on all of this, including a video presentation, of the inquiry we carried out,” he said. “We always said that we’ll give you a frank and honest presentation and they were very pleased with that. What we did we have showed them. The conclusions and comments they have made are their own and we will not comment on that.”

Match facts

Deccan v Bangalore, Nagpur
Monday, April 12
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)Anil Kumble has been magnificent with the ball and has led from the front.•Associated Press

Big Picture

Deccan Chargers refuse to fade away. Just when you thought they were slipping away, they bounced back with a win. Just when you thought they were over-reliant on big names, T Suman led from front. Just when you thought they were really poor while bowling in the end overs, they produced a near-perfect end game against Chennai Super Kings.The clarity over each player’s role, so well defined during last year’s winning campaign, is gradually coming to the fore. Andrew Symonds is the finisher, Rohit Sharma the engine of the batting, Suman provides the momentum and Monish Mishra the much-needed blast at the top.Deccan will hope Adam Gilchrist fires in the upcoming pressure games. It isn’t as if he has looked out of touch, but he has rarely converted any of his starts. The bowling, despite their good showing against Chennai, has not looked completely reliable.Things won’t be as easy against Royal Challengers Bangalore, as was the case with Chennai. Bangalore, too, were appearing to lose the plot after they lost four out of five games, but roared back with a commanding performance against Kolkata Knight Riders.After Rahul Dravid joined the form men with a delightful fifty in that match, Bangalore’s batting looks solid. The bowling has been iffy; they conceded 180-plus totals in the three consecutive games before improving against Kolkata, keeping them to 160. Despite that performance, the bowling will remain a headache and Deccan have the batting firepower, on their day, to take full toll.If Bangalore win on Monday, they will move a step closer to qualifying for the semi-finals with 14 points and two games to play. Deccan are currently placed seventh, and are in a tougher situation with a poor net run-rate of -0.539. If they win, though, they will be level on points with three other teams and climb, depending upon the margin of victory, at least two places up.

Form guide (most recent first)

Bangalore Royal Challengers WLLWL
Deccan Chargers WWLLL

Team talk

Who will partner Jacques Kallis in the opening slot? Sridharan Sriram, who can slip in couple of overs, or will Bangalore return to Manish Pandey?Deccan seem a settled unit, finally, on the batting front, but the bowling remains a problem area. It says a lot about RP Singh’s skills on flat tracks when Symonds looks a much better option to complete the quota of four overs. The bright spot for Deccan in their bowling has been Ryan Harris, who, chosen over Chaminda Vaas, was the Man of the Match in the last game.

Previously

Deccan 3, Bangalore 2
In the previous game between the teams, Suman played a responsible hand to steer Deccan to a seven-wicket win at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

In the spotlight

Anil Kumble has been a treat to watch. The two-fingered googlies have worked like a charm and he has shown mastery in varying his pace. He has never been shy to take on the toughest batsmen and continues to be Bangalore’s best bowler.Andrew Symonds may not have been at his brutal best, be but he is playing his role to perfection. In the last few games, he has showcased his great skill of knowing exactly when to play the big shot and has backed his instincts.

Prime numbers

• With 61 fours, Jacques Kallis is way ahead of Andrew Symonds (27 fours), the nearest competitor from the opposition. With 21 sixes, Robin Uthappa has six more than Adam Gilchrist, the man with the most sixes for Deccan.
• Uthappa’s 179.74 is the best strike-rate among those who have scored 200 or more in this IPL.
• Both Vinay Kumar (4 for 40) and Anil Kumble (3 for 9) feature in the list of the top five bowling figures in an innings. There is no one from Deccan in the top ten..

The chatter

“We’re still in the mix now. We are improving our performances though I wouldn’t say we are at our best. If we can secure some wins by not playing at our best, it’s a good sign.”
“The balance and depth of our side can be judged by the fact that someone like Kevin Pietersen has to sit out. But that’s how it is. You can only play four foreigners and rightly so. This is the Indian Premier League.

Eliminated but far from embarrassed. Afghanistan need feel no shame at all as they depart the World Twenty20. Getting here was one of the sporting stories of all time and they certainly haven’t disgraced themselves against India and South Africa. Now their coach, Kabir Khan, wants the cricketing world to embrace Afghanistan and help them sustain their development by inviting the team for one-day and Twenty20 matches.Afghanistan can’t play matches at home – and it will be years until they can – and facilities are limited to one grass pitch so it will need wholehearted philanthropy from the global game to help. They currently have ODI status and Khan called on the top nations to give his side a chance in limited-overs matches to ensure the players’ growth can continue.”They have to play a lot more than a game or two. We’ve got ODI status and we can play Twenty20 internationals against any country in the world so the teams need to invite us,” Khan said. “They could invite players for training camps, they could invite them into the domestic games as professional or semi-professional, we don’t mind, but they should play cricket.”We want all the big cricket countries to help us in that. We’ve got talent, the boys are quite ready. They are quick learners and we expect that all the cricket nations watching us will help in that regard.”Khan hopes that being on television in front of millions will have been the ideal shop window for a number of his players and that they might attract interest from overseas. “It was good to see them on the television and they have been exposed,” he said.”As a coach that’s what I’m happy about because we want them to play tough professional cricket in other countries with a contract in South Africa, Australia, England or India. The main aim is to play for their country, but to get professional cricket they have to play the top countries. If you want to get used to facing the likes of [Dale] Steyn or [Morne] Morkel, or anyone on top of the world, they have to play against them in domestic cricket.”When the Afghanistan chase crashed to 32 for 8 against the type of pace bowling they’d never seen before it appeared they would leave with the unwanted record of the lowest Twenty20 international score. However, spirit and fight oozes through the line-up and gutsy innings from Mirwais Ashraf and Hamid Hassan, who earlier bowled superbly to take 3 for 21, hauled them above Kenya’s 67.”They were really quick, bowling at 90mph and there was swing as well so it was very difficult for our batsmen to face them,” captain Nowroz Mangal said. “They got early wickets and took the game from us.”And there was some style about the lower-order display, too, as the ninth-wicket pair hit four sixes between them, including one by Ashraf, off Albie Morkel, that cleared the Garry Sobers Pavilion and bounced into the net area. That followed a highly accomplished bowling display where South Africa were made to work hard for each of their 139 runs with Jacques Kallis’ 34 the top score as Mangal led from the front with three fine catches.Hassan lived up to his billing as the team’s poster boy with a display of death bowling as good as anything in the tournament so far. He, along with allrounder Mohammad Nabi, are two Afghanistan players who have had a taste of cricket overseas after they both were part of the MCC Young Cricketers scheme, while Nabi also plays domestically in Pakistan.”As a coach I am quite satisfied with their performance against the two top nations in the world – cricket wise and facilities wise – and they performed well,” Khan said. “Against India there was all sorts of pressure on them; there was television, there were the big stars, there was the crowd and they coped with it very well. Today, to restrict a batting line-up like South Africa to 139 is a big achievement so there are all sorts of pluses for them.”The key is they need to be exposed to that pressure again and again and then they’ll get used to it. On a bowling machine you can put it to 90mph but you can’t have Dale Steyn bowling at you and swinging the ball. So you have to face those bowlers to get the experience. Because my team are quick learners when they play against South Africa or India again they will do much better.”From the summit of playing South Africa at one of world’s finest cricket grounds Afghanistan now step back to the Associate level which they are beginning to dominate, but this experience will have left with them with a lifetime of memories. Now they want some help to make sure they come back again.

Scorecard
A sixth-wicket stand of 158 between Nic Pothas and Sean Ervine was the solitary bright spot for Hampshire as they turned in another stuttering batting display to reach 281 for 7 on the first day of their County Championship match with Somerset at the Rose Bowl.Hampshire, who have made their worst start to a domestic season for 104 years, got off to a dreadful start in slightly overcast conditions, as Somerset left-arm seamer Charl Willoughby nipped out in-form openers Michael Carberry and Jimmy Adams with the score at just 18. Liam Dawson, back in Hampshire’s four-day side and promoted to bat at No. 3, steadied the ship in partnership with Neil McKenzie, but the going was sluggish at best as the pair tried to build a foundation for the innings.After cautiously playing his way in and appearing set, Dawson fell lbw to legspinner Michael Munday, to leave Hampshire floundering at 64 for 3. Fellow youngster James Vince came to the crease, but after playing with the sort of composure which has seen him marked as a star of the future, a lapse in concentration saw him suffer a similar fate to Dawson, as he was rushed out by Willoughby when seemingly well set on 26.McKenzie added just ten in partnership with Pothas, before falling two runs short of what would have been a battling half century, leaving Hampshire in danger of folding completely at 123 for 5, with Pothas and the incoming Sean Ervine the last recognised batsmen.Perhaps spurred by the difficulties experienced by their more circumspect peers, Pothas and Ervine swapped a timid approach for one dominated by a fluency and confidence which belied Hampshire’s perilous position.Legspinner Munday was treated with particular disdain as Ervine and Pothas racked up a flurry of boundaries – including four enormous sixes between them. Their controlled hitting and powerful running between the wickets wrestled the initiative away from Somerset, who hitherto had surged into the ascendancy thanks to their accurate bowling.But with the close looming and the light descending, Somerset struck two late blows to ensure they had the better of the day’s spoils. First Pothas fell to Ben Phillips just 13 runs short of what would have been a richly deserved ton, before new batsman Dominic Cork – still clearly shaking new-season ring rust from his aging body – also fell to veteran seamer Phillips for an eight-ball duck.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details</a
How they were out
Hawk-eye
Morne Morkel polished off the West Indian tail in quick time•AFP

South Africa inflicted a dispiriting series loss on West Indies at a venue that was once the home team’s fortress and finished the bilateral tour unbeaten. Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s hopes of compiling a competitive lead on the fourth morning were quashed by a menacing spell from Morne Morkel, who cut through the West Indies tail to ensure a quick end to their resistance.Chanderpaul had stood firm amid West Indies’ capitulation on the third day, and taken his team into the lead with support from Shane Shillingford, who was dismissed shortly before stumps. The men who followed, though, were unable to put up a fight.Morkel attacked Sulieman Benn from round the wicket, getting the ball to move both ways and troubling the left-hander who played and missed often. He was ultimately done in by one that nipped back in sharply to break through his defences and send the off stump cartwheeling. Kemar Roach followed soon after, edging a drive to Mark Boucher after a series of short balls.Chanderpaul had shown confidence in the tail, not hesitating to pick singles early in the over, but was left watching as his partners fell quickly. The debutant Brandon Bess poked a short-of-length delivery to slip, as Morkel polished off the tail in three overs, leaving South Africa just 47 to chase. Roach displayed plenty of aggression, nipping out three wickets, striking Graeme Smith on the neck with a bouncer, and even getting involved in an extended verbal exchange with Jacques Kallis. But the game was over and done with.The West Indies captain Chris Gayle had called on his batsmen to shoulder more responsibility during his team’s 5-0 debacle in the one-dayers. However, some of those who did play the Test series failed to fulfil to their role. Dale Richards, drafted in for this Test in place of Travis Dowlin, conceded his wicket cheaply in both innings, playing across the line to be trapped plumb, and spooning a catch off a needless pull.More worrying would be the case of Narsingh Deonarine. He had looked solid in the first innings before, inexplicably, switching to an aggressive approach to be bowled. In the second, he played a reckless drive first ball to offer a catch to short cover. Equally irresponsible was the dismissal of Denesh Ramdin, the former vice-captain, who slashed a wide delivery to the keeper in the second innings.Though South Africa’s pace attack had far more venom, the battle in the spin department was more evenly contested with each of the four frontline spinners in this Test extracting assistance from a gradually deteriorating track. The move to pick a spinner, Johan Botha, in place of left-arm seamer Lonwabo Tsotsobe, proved decisive for the visitors. And the seamers Dale Steyn and Morkel, on a pitch that was of lesser benefit to them than the slow bowlers, varied their lengths superbly, ruffling up the batsmen with the short deliveries and creating the temptation to play by pushing the odd one fuller.But while South Africa, with more assuredness in their batting and a generally superior outfit, were favourites throughout, their task was made easier by the reckless approach adopted by their opponents.

One-day cricket in its familiar form could soon become a thing of the past after the Cricket Australia board gave the green light to a trial of split-innings state games next summer. If the new format is successful, Cricket Australia will take the idea to the ICC as a plan to keep ODIs alive, meaning the 2015 World Cup could feature a split-innings format.Although there has been no decision on how many overs each innings would be – four innings of either 20 or 25 overs are the most likely – CA will finalise their concept in the coming weeks. The first four rounds of the FR Cup will be played under the existing rules before the new format is introduced for the remaining six rounds, which will start in February.By then, Australia’s World Cup squad will have departed, so their preparations will not be affected. James Sutherland, the CA chief executive, said the innovation was intended as a way to retain all three formats of the game, with the middle portion of 50-over innings having become largely predictable.”It provides a mechanism by which in the eyes of the consumer we can distinguish the one-day game a little bit more from the Twenty20 format of the game,” Sutherland said. “There’s no doubt that there’s some feedback there that suggests that parts of the one-day game are a little bit predictable. That’s certainly something that we are looking to address.”One of the things that’s come back as the feedback from fans and also from a television audience perspective is that by having a split innings, after the dinner break, no matter, you will get to see both teams bat in the evening. That is something that people who might be going to the game after work or coming home after work see as being a very significant plus for this format.”The popularity of Twenty20 cricket has left ODIs in a difficult position, somewhere between the dynamic shortest format and the traditional Test matches. England and South Africa have already reduced their one-day domestic competitions to 40 overs a side, in an effort to eliminate some of the less exciting middle overs.The ICC has been searching for ways to keep 50-over cricket relevant, and next year’s World Cup on the subcontinent could feasibly be the last one played in the existing format. Sutherland said it was hard to predict how one-day cricket would look by the time of the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.”If you’re suggesting that the current playing conditions that one-day international cricket is being played under today is going to be the same in 2015, then I would suggest that it’s probably not the case,” Sutherland said. “There’s a question there about how radically the playing conditions may have developed or changed. I honestly don’t know the answer to that but what we at Cricket Australia are looking to do is to find a landing spot with a new format.”We have also been encouraged to innovate through the ICC cricket committee, who met not long ago. They were very, very encouraging of full members looking to explore innovations within the playing conditions and certainly that’s been raised at chief executive committee level in recent times.”Cricket Australia will now move to finalise the details, although it seems certain that teams will resume their second innings from the point where their first innings concluded. Sutherland said feedback from fans had played a major role in the split-innings concept, which has also been trialled this year in England’s county 2nd XI competition.

William Porterfield, the Ireland captain, has said the extra motivation of moving above Zimbabwe in the ICC rankings will egg his side on to complete a 2-0 sweep of Bangladesh in the one-dayers in Belfast. Ireland comprehensively won the first match on Thursday by seven wickets, with Porterfield’s unbeaten century being the cornerstone of the victory.”It is only a fantastic result if we can make it 2-0 tomorrow [Friday],” Porterfield said after Thursday’s win. “We need to win both games to stay above Zimbabwe in the [ODI rankings] table and that will be the target.” A loss in the second ODI will keep Ireland in 11th spot, while a win will push them to 40 points, six clear of 10th-ranked Zimbabwe.In the first game, Porterfield was named Man of the Match for his fifth ODI century – his first against a Test-playing nation. His brisk 118-run opening stand with Paul Stirling set up a comfortable victory with five overs to spare. “That’s as good an innings as I’ve ever played for Ireland,” he said. “I was feeling good from the word go. Paul Stirling took a lot of the pressure off me with the way he batted. After that Alex Cusack was solid and made sure there would be no collapse.”The one aspect of the team’s performance he was unhappy with was the fielding. “We dropped a couple of catches, so we will be out to eradicate that, but the team have been batting like that for a while now and it was great to carry on the form the lads showed in Holland.”

Scorecard
Derbyshire completed a regulation seven-wicket win over Holland in Group B ofthe Clydesdale Bank 40 in Schiedam.Solid bowling ensured a modest target of 182 for the visiting side and theyeased to it with three overs still to be bowled and just three batsmen in thepavilion.Chris Rogers and Chesney Hughes ensured there were no dramas, posting 111 forthe first wicket to dispel any Derbyshire doubts. Rogers won the toss, opting to field first, and was rewarded early when Tim Groenewald removed opener Eric Szwarczynski for nine.Mark Footitt also enjoyed success with the new ball, trapping Tom Cooper lbwfor six as Holland slipped to 22 for 2. Michael Dighton steadied things but had managed just 16 from 38 deliveries when he was third man out to Steffan Jones in the 14th over.Jones also accounted for home skipper Peter Borren as regular wickets preventedthe batting side building any serious momentum. Groenewald, a little expensive with 42 runs off his six overs, picked up a second wicket when he returned to the attack to remove Wesley Barresi.From there Holland enjoyed their best partnership of the day, Bas Zuiderent andMudassar Bukhari adding 76 for the sixth wicket. Zuiderent had compiled 31 from 70 balls before Footitt sent him back but Bukhari was the aggressor – hitting eight fours and three sixes to finishunbeaten with 69. The tail contributed little in support with Footitt and Jones adding to theirwicket hauls as Holland finished nine down with 181 on the board.That was never likely to be enough, especially when the hosts failed to disruptthe Rogers-Hughes partnership with the new ball. Rogers was first out – caught at the wicket off the bowling of Dighton for 56 in the 23rd over – but by then much of the work was done.Dighton claimed a second wicket when he saw off Greg Smith for 12 but Hughescontinued scoring, with five fours and a six propelling him to 72 before he wasrun out. New man Wayne Madsen wasted no time in securing the two points, hitting thewinning runs off his second ball.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
Jonathan Vandiar switched gears after the Powerplay to reach a match-winning, career-best score of 71•AFP

Sachin Tendulkar the batsman nearly made up for Sachin Tendulkar the captain, but a charged-up Lions side completed a feel-good underdog win in a tense finish to kick off the Champions League T20. Their young opener, Jonathan Vandiar, and the experienced Neil McKenzie gave the star-studded but sloppy Mumbai Indians a rough welcome to the Highveld before Lions’ enthusiastic bowlers and fielders did enough to keep the chase in check.Tendulkar’s 69 off 42, which was as good an innings as the fifties from Vandiar and McKenzie, left JP Duminy and Kieron Pollard 56 to get off 33. Shane Burger, gentle right-arm medium-pacer on the face of it, followed up the big wicket of Tendulkar with a pinpoint yorker to remove Pollard. What made that second wicket even more special was that it came at the end of an over in which Pollard smashed Burger all around his home ground. Thirty-one off the remaining three overs proved too much for Duminy.The second-last ball of the match summed up a night on which Mumbai got almost every strategy wrong. With two sixes required to force a tie, Ryan McLaren played one along the ground. Clearly Mumbai didn’t have much of a role for him as batsman, and they used him to bowl only the first over of the match that went for four runs and four leg-byes. The part-timers who were used instead went for 49 in four overs.That shouldn’t take away from the joy of the underdogs. At the heart of the Champions League is the charm of a low-key team giving an ensemble of millionaire superstars, bought in an auction, a hard time. The League’s second season couldn’t have asked for a better opener on that account.In front of a decent home crowd, the Lions came so ready they even erred on the side of over-enthusiasm; Mumbai were slow in the field, bizarre in the tactics, and inexplicably subdued, starting with McLaren and left-arm spinner Ali Murtaza, choosing not to attack a nervous-looking home side with Zaheer Khan and Lasith Malinga.As it turned out, Vandiar got over the nervous start, during which he ended up at the same end as his captain Alviro Petersen, but he beat his mate to the crease by a split frame to give himself a chance to make this his night. By the end of the innings, Mumbai would have wished Murtaza, the bowler who completed the run-out, had been slightly quicker in taking the bails off.Vandiar kept swinging wildly during the Powerplay, edging and slogging his way to 18 off 23, but he transformed the effort when the field spread, scoring 53 off his last 26, to reach his highest Twenty20 score. The seasoned McKenzie, though, didn’t need any crazy acceleration, starting his unbeaten 56 off 30 balls with a beautiful late-cut and finishing with brutal short-arm jabs.Richard Cameron, playing one shot too many, followed Petersen soon and Lions seemed to have lost their way at 39 for 2 at the end of the Powerplay. The seventh over proved to be a turning point of sorts. Harbhajan Singh slipped while trying to bowl his first delivery, and then slipped his second attempt in short and wide. That boundary perhaps told Vandiar he didn’t need to go across the line every time.In the next few overs, Vandiar danced down the pitch to Zaheer, and lofted Duminy over cow corner for six. He then targeted the gentle pace of R Sathish and Pollard. The unsure swings had now turned into assured shots into vacant areas. If the six to bring up his fifty, over long-off, was a treat to watch, the one over midwicket, off Malinga, was plain audacious.McKenzie was not indulging in anything audacious. He played smart, percentage cricket, letting Vandiar take charge. That didn’t mean he was slow. By the time Vandiar got out in the 17th over, he had helped himself to 28 off 18. Tendulkar’s inexplicable non-usage of McLaren continued, and McKenzie took full toll of Murtaza’s wayward 18th over. Mumbai’s fielders helped too, allowing two overthrows in the last three overs to let McKenzie retain strike. Thirty-nine came off those three overs.Asoka de Silva tried to be a villain in the fairytale when he denied fast bowler Ethan O’Reilly’s grandchildren the story of how grandpa got the greatest batsman of the day plumb lbw first ball. Tendulkar, on 6 at that point, went on to put on an exhibition, but his side was frustrated by a bubbly fielding effort. The excitement did get to Lions a bit as they conceded a few overthrows and dropped Tendulkar when on 34.Tendulkar was taking Mumbai home smoothly when bowled by Burger. Pollard was taking Mumbai home brutally when bowled by Burger. That was the final touch of the individual that Lions needed on a night of their collective brilliance.