Two years ago, when Trinidad and Tobago had beaten the New South Wales Blues in a league game, Moises Henriques had been rather spendthrift in his bowling. It was the 49 runs that he conceded off only 3.3 overs that had changed the complexion of the game and lost his side the match.
Almost two years later, Henriques was the star of the show for the Blues against the same team from the West Indies in the Champions League T20 game. Henriques brought the New South Wales team back from dead by first forcing the match into a Super Over and then, winning it for the Blues with his own bat.
Chasing a target of 140 for a win, the Blues looked to be in all sorts of trouble when they had been reduced to needing 17 runs off the last over to win the game. But Henriques’ cool finishing allowed the side to bounce back from the near-jaws of defeat as he smashed a couple of boundaries off the first two balls from Ravi Rampaul’s last over. Patrick Cummins hit another four to bring the situation to exactly where it was in Trinidad and Tobago’s first game against Mumbai – two needed for the opposition off the last ball.
This time, only a single was allowed and the match went into the Super Over. Here, the captain Simon Katich was smart enough to allow Henriques to continue batting and he hit four boundaries off the last four balls of the over. A target of 19 was always going to be a stiff and despite Lendl Simmons’ best intentions, the side fell three short of getting there. Henriques was rightly awarded the man of the match for his couple of wickets and unbeaten 18 under pressure before churning out another 18 in the Super Over.
Earlier, Trinidad and Tobago were afforded a decent start through Simmons and Adrian Barath. Barath fell for 15 and while Simmons looked good while he lasted, he began to suffer from dehydration issues very early in his innings. That hampered his play and eventually led to his downfall. The middle-order chipped in with a few scores but the acceleration came in the final four overs of the innings through an almost non-existent lower-middle order to prop the side up to 139.
New South Wales were provided a strong start from their opening batsmen, much like the Caribbean side, but once Shane Watson (14) fell, the run-rate deteriorated. In a bid to up the ante, the Blues’ middle-order lost a couple of wickets and the spinners managed to put a throttle on the scoring rather well to push them further back.
New South Wales needed 42 from the last four overs and after a couple of tight overs, this was brought down to 28 from two with four wickets standing. 11 came from the penultimate over but two wickets fell which meant that Henriques was left with too much to do off the last over. Fortunately for the Blues, he did what he was expected to do and pushed up the side’s chances of getting to the knock-outs.