Team Abu Dhabi 111 for 4 (du Plooy 47*, Ingram 20*, Cook 1-13) lost against Chennai Braves 115 for 4 (Roy 84*, Pretorius 2-21, Mills 1-19) by a margin of four runs.
In an exciting last over against the Chennai Braves, Leus du Plooy and Colin Ingram teamed to smash 17 off the final over, but Team Abu Dhabi was still defeated by four runs. Obed McCoy beat du Plooy with a dot ball to end the game, but Abu Dhabi needed five runs to win off the final ball.
Jason Roy’s unbroken 84 from 39 balls, which included six fours and seven sixes, helped the Braves set a record 116 for Abu Dhabi; Kobe Herft’s 14 was the next-best score by a Braves batter. Even though Abu Dhabi’s skipper Dwaine Pretorius dismissed Stephen Eskinazi on the fourth ball of the eighth over and ran Charith Asalanka for a duck on the next ball, Roy led the way by enabling the Braves reach 115 in the final three overs.
Abu Dhabi, on the other hand, needed to score another 61 runs from the final four overs because they were unable to keep up with the run chase during the middle overs. That’s when Ingram and du Plooy teamed up. Sam Cook gave up just seven runs in the ninth over, allowing Abu Dhabi to need just 22 runs in the last over despite taking 32 off the next two overs. In the end, du Plooy struck 47 off just 18 balls, but the Braves managed to survive when he missed the last delivery.
Deccan Gladiators 120 for 2 (Kohler-Cadmore 42, Fletcher 34, Naveen 1-28) were defeated by Delhi Bulls 122 for 1 (de Kock 50*, Charles 36, Powell 31*, Wood 1-7) by nine wickets.
The top three batsmen for Delhi Bulls crushed the Deccan Gladiators by nine wickets to begin the Abu Dhabi T10 season on a winning note. They reached the target of 121 in only 8.3 overs. Quinton de Kock and Johnson Charles, the opening batsmen, set the tone for the Bulls with their 73-run and five-over innings, respectively, which captain Rovman Powell quickly chased down.
Charles was dismissed for 36 from 13 deliveries, including five fours and one more six, while Powell finished undefeated on 31 off just 12 balls. The quick cameos rendered de Kock’s 50-run innings virtually meaningless, as his strike rate of 192 seemed significantly lower than Charles’ 276 and Powell’s 258. This also rendered the Gladiators’ batters ineffective.
The Gladiators chose to bat first, and for the second straight night, Tom Kohler-Cadmore led them. He had scored 42 runs at twice the speed against the Bulls, after scoring an undefeated 68 against the New York Strikers. Andre Russell’s 19-ball cameo off just five deliveries and Andre Fletcher’s 34 off 20 balls gave the final touches. But in the end, none of that would matter.
