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We now come to the close of our coverage of the 2023 Legends League Cricket for the day. The Urbanrisers Hyderabad have a place in the final - deservedly so! The Manipal Tigers, though, will have another bite at the cherry on Thursday as they await their opponents for the second qualifier. Do join us right here on Sportskeeda for our coverage of the same, and of course, a whole lot more! This is Rajarshi, signing off on behalf of Arya. Ciao!
Suresh Raina, Urbanrisers Hyderabad captain: Playing the playoffs in yellow is common for me! The wicket was very good, we almost scored 450 runs. Smithy played one of the best knocks in T20 cricket. We lost wickets, but didn't lose momentum, were in a good position after 10 overs. Smith and Gurkeerat had a good partnership, I was thinking whether 250 was enough between overs! They had to come hard due to the wicket. Good game for the crowd, that's the beauty of LLC. They almost scored 110 in 10 overs but kept losing wickets. I had to bring a few changes to the bowling. As long as the match is going on, you can't take a win for granted. We were backing Asghar, because he played thos 20-30 run knocks. Has a good heart, he always gives his best for the team. We have a good core group. Good to be in the final, we have a couple of days. One more final, hopefully we do well.
Mohammad Kaif (Manipal Tigers captain): Yeah they got a bit too many. 200 was under par, 250 was a bit too much. We kept losing wickets. When the required rate was so high, you had to go hard from the start. We lost four wickets in the powerplay. If we had wickets, the match could have been a close one. The bowlers panicked but credit goes to Dwayne Smith. Perera batted brilliantly for us. I think bowling and fielding probably, we should have taken the catch and the stumping chance. Those cost us the game.
Dwayne Smith (Player of the Match): After such a long day to come and get a good score, I am very happy. Wanted to spend some time in the middle. Not much change, to be more selective and bat as deep as possible. I know the runs will come if I bat on. I think the way the ball behaved, not much movement and I thought we needed to get over 200. Felt we had to get close to 250-260
Match summary:
Urbanrisers Hyderabad win by 75 runs
Dwayne Smith 120(53) | Peter Trego 3/8 (1.3) Angelo Perera 73(30) | Pankaj Singh 2/47 (4)
The task was too steep right from the word go, and even though Urbanrisers Hyderabad had a tense passage of play to deal with, once Angelo Perera holed out, the game was done. The Sri Lankan all-rounder single-handedly kept the Tigers in the hunt for quite a long period of time, but the fact that they lost too many wickets early on went against their favour.
The Tigers were caught between trying to go hard from ball one and consolidating once wickets began tumbling. They didn't help themselves with some of the shots they played - both Chadwick Walton and Colin de Grandhomme picked out Martin Guptill at deep square to perfection. Kyle Coetzer's run out in between served as an example of how the proceedings have been for the Tigers over the course of the game, and once Amit Verma was pouched in the last over of the powerplay, the Tigers were staring down the barrel.
Skipper Mohammad Kaif then joined Angelo Perera in the middle, and the duo then looked to put up a fight. While Angelo found the boundaries, Kaif struggled to get going and picked out Suyal soon after. Perera, though, kept at it as wickets tumbled - a 21-run over from Asghar Afghan helped the cause of the Tigers momentarily. The Tigers were going at a decent rate, but once picked out Dwayne Smith, the end was nigh. Presentations up next...
16.3 Peter Trego to Prankaj Singh, WICKET! Peter Trego wraps it up in emphatic style. They have absolutely walloped the Manipal Tigers by 75 runs. Nails the middle stump yorker, goes under the bat of Pankaj and rattles the middle stump.
Pankaj Singh b Peter Trego 0 (1b, 0x4, 0x6)
Pankaj Singh, RHB, comes to the crease
16.2 Peter Trego to Praveen Gupta, WICKET! Urbanrisers are almost there. That looked like a clean shot but very well taken by Asghar Afghan at deep backward square leg. Picks up the fuller one on the pads but finds the fielder.
Praveen Gupta c Asghar Afghan b Peter Trego 16 (12b, 2x4, 0x6)
16.1 Peter Trego to Mitchell McClenaghan, reverse dabs this fuller one outside off towards the deep third man region for a single.
Time-out. Just the formalities remain to be completed. A target of 254 is out of bounds on most days for most teams, and it seems no different today either. Angelo Perera did all that he could, but he needed a better platform from the top order to inflict some more pressure.
Video
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P Trego
T Perera
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Lalabhai Contractor Stadium, Surat
