Top 5 players who will be missed during Champions League T20 2014
The Champions League Twenty20 (CL T20) is in its 6th season, and it would be fair to say that the tournament has not managed to gain the popularity that the organizers of the tournament would have initially hoped for.The first season of the CLT20, back in 2009, was probably the best ever tournament in terms of quality of cricket, with New South Wales and Trinidad & Tobago, in particular, playing some sparkling cricket right throughout the tournament. But the subsequent tournaments, unfortunately, haven’t been able to provide the same kind of spectacle.What is not going to help the CLT20’s cause, as far as this year’s tournament is concerned, is the fact that some of the most marquee T20 cricketers in the world won’t be taking part due to their team(s) not having qualified for the event.Here are 5 players whose presence will be sorely missed in this year’s CLT20:
#5 Dale Steyn
Although Dale Steyn will be remembered by posterity more for his exploits in Test match cricket, but there is no doubt that Steyn, at his best, is among the top T20 bowlers as well. He did have a poor 2014 IPL season, but it would be grossly unfair to judge his T20 ability on the basis of one tournament. You only have to look at the 2014 World T20, which took place shortly before the IPL, to see what Steyn is capable of when in form.
In a group stage encounter between South Africa and New Zealand, the Black Caps needed 7 runs off the last over for victory, with the well-set Ross Taylor and Luke Ronchi at the crease and 5 wickets in hand. Steyn, who was entrusted with the responsibility of bowling the last over, not only defended the target by conceding just 4 runs in an extremely high-pressure situation, but also prized out the wickets of Ronchi and Nathan McCullum in the process.