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Cricket

Hampshire v Sialkot Stallions live Champions League T20 2012

Hampshire v Sialkot Stallions live Champions League T20 2012

It is a day of dead rubbers and the two teams later in action on Thursday will feel they have come to face the harsh side of cricket.

It is a day of dead rubbers and the two teams later in action on Thursday will feel they have come to face the harsh side of cricket.

Hampshire and Sialkot Stallions come head to head in the last match of the qualifying round for Champions League Twenty20 but the match itself has little significance given that the teams have already been decided.

One bad outing for both the teams was enough to send the teams crashing and they will be packing their bags after Thursday’s match.

They will be ruing the opportunity to get their hands on the big prize money the main competition has to offer, but there could be no excuses for the performances they gave in their respective matches against Auckland Aces.

Sialkot Stallions arrived for the tournament with high expectations as well as significant media hype.

As the most successful T20 side worldwide as well as being the first Pakistani team to appear in the Champions League, the expectations were high.

However, their performance in the match against Auckland was disappointing to say the least as the batsmen found it difficult to survive on a testing wicket.

Shahid Yousuf top scored with 39 but the likes of Shoaib Malik and Imran Nazir will be looking to do well in order to attract some attention of franchise owners around the world. Raza Hassan is another star who continues to grow in stature with each match.

Their opponents, Hampshire, suffered a heavier defeat as Auckland thrashed them by eight wickets with more than five overs to spare.

Michael Carberry was the only batsman able to score freely while the rest fell in a heap. Shahid Afridi, the Pakistani all-rounder, disappointed once again but will be pumped up to perform well against his Pakistani counterparts.

The team would be hoping to exit the tournament with some respect.

The match starts at 1.30pm local time.