Dramatic Victory for Simba Union

By  Oscar Pilipili and agencies

Simba Union beat Premier in a dramatic ‘super over’ to win Nairobi Province Cricket Association (NPCA) T20  title at Nairobi Club.

Both teams were locked at 123, sending the match to the tense ‘super over’ decider.

Simba scored a challenging 32 off their six balls before restricting Premier to only seven runs.

Simba Union’s Bilal Habib and Nadeem Ahmed made 18 and 12 runs respectively in the crucial over of the match.

Nadeem then put on a great show with the ball to help his side wit the supper over with 25 runs to win the title.

The breathless finish came after Premier got the wicket of Maurice Odumbe with 14 runs needed with three overs to play but Simba middle order batsmen failed to keep up the momentum that the former international had put them in.

Odumbe made 40 off 40 balls to keep in with a chance for an upset win but Premier bowlers led by Jatin Patel held their nerves to force a tie.

With scores at 40 for 3 after the dismissal of Bilal, Gurmajot Singh and Nadeem, Maurice Odumbe played a well crafted inning to keep his side back in controol until when he was caught by Nilesh Patel off Jatin.

Nadeem was the second top scorer for Simba with 15 off 15 balls before falling to Anish Amin who had him stumped in the sixth over.

Bilal was also instrumental with 11 runs off 12 balls.

First choice

Earlier, Sanjiv Patel and Jatin made 33 and 23 respectively. The two fell to Odumbe and Nadeem.

Tarandeep Sihgn and Nadeem were the top bowlers for Simba with 2 for 9 and 3 for 21 respectively.

Vijay Patel (6) and Banti Patel (0) were the other batsmen to fall to Nadeem.

Beyond borders, Mathew Wade has been confirmed as Australia’s first-choice Test wicketkeeper but Brad Haddin remains a “player of significant interest”, according to the national selector John Inverarity.

Wade was named in a 12-man squad to take on South Africa in the first Test, starting at the Gabba on November 9, and there were no surprises in the group, with Mitchell Starc included and Pat Cummins, who has not played first-class cricket for nearly a year, left out.

No changes

The selectors chose four fast men — Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Pattinson and Starc — along with the offspinner Nathan Lyon, and the main question in the lead-up to the Test will surround the final make-up of the attack.

There were no changes to the top six with the opener Ed Cowan given a chance to make the position his own, after beginning his Test career with encouraging but not outstanding performances against India and West Indies over the past year.

Meanwhile, Australia wicketkeeper Brad Haddin’s test career appeared to be drawing to a close yesterday when he was left out of the squad for the first match of next month’s series against South Africa.

The combative 35-year-old, who played his 43rd test in the last match of Australia’s 4-0 sweep of India in January, has been replaced by Matt Wade in the 12-man party for the Novemver 9-13 match against the number one ranked Proteas in Brisbane.

Haddin, whose batting average has slipped to 35.82 over the last couple of years, gave way to 24-year-old Wade for the tour of West Indies earlier this year when he was forced to return home to be with his seriously ill daughter.

Wade, who was left out of a domestic match at the weekend because of an injured thumb, grabbed his chance with both hands in the Caribbean and boasts a batting average of 39.60 from his three tests.