What’s better than sitting at the Wanderers on the fourth day of a test match, cold beer in hand, watching England getting a rogering from Dale Steyn? Analysing cricket statistics that’s what, I love my stats so I thought I’d look up some statistics from the recent Champions League Twenty20.

Considering it’s T20 cricket, I started with the most runs scored, the Golden Bat was awarded to Murali Vijay from the Chennai Super Kings. Vijay over took Davey Jacobs in the final innings of the tournament to end on a total of 294 runs, just 8 more than Jacobs. Jacobs did achieve a higher strike rate and hit considerably more boundaries that Vijay.

Most Runs:

Suresh Raina’s 94* off just 48 balls against one of the better bowling teams in the tournament, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, as well as his 87 off 44 balls against Wayamba, put him head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. Raina ended in 4^th place on the most runs table, making him probably the most valuable batsmen in the Champions League.

A notable omission from the table below is Kieron Pollard, who scored 127 runs, at a strike rate of 201.58 with a highest score of 72* – Pollard also hit Shaun Tait out of Kingsmead, and then proceeded to do a little dance with Dwayne Bravo – one of the highlights for me.

Highest Scores:

It’s become clear that quality bowling wins T20 matches, yes you need to hit the ball long and hard, but a quality bowler is far more valuable then a big hitting batsman. The stats support this view, the Chennai Super Kings have three bowlers of the top 5 wicket takers in the tournament, and if you peek  a little lower, they also have three of the most economical bowlers – no wonder they were victorious.

Ravichandran Ashwin who bounced back from that disastrous super over against Victoria where he conceded 23, ended winning the Golden Wicket award taking 13 wickets, just one more that his team mate Muralitharan.

Most Wickets:

It’s a bowlers ability to strike while limiting the runs scored off of him that makes him great. Muralitharan managed to take 12 wickets and only concede 5.69 runs per over…. as a spin bowler…. in T20. That’s impressive anyway you look at it, is Muralitharan the most valuable T20 player in the world?

Four of the five most economical bowlers are spinners which leads me to think that if any team wants to win a T20 tournament then best they find a quality spin bowler or three.

Best Economy Rates: (12 overs bowled to qualify)

The Warriors and the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), both winners of their domestic T20 competitions; the Standard Bank Pro 20 and the Indian Premier league meet in the final of the Champions League T20 at the Wanderers. Both teams had only lost one game on their road to the final, the Warriors lost to the CSK in the last game of the league stages while CSK lost to the Victoria Bush Rangers in the super over after tying on 162.

After much hype and fanfare the start of the match was a fail, the side screen would not change from the sponsors logo to the black screen. Once the side screen was sorted, Davey Jacobs continued with his impressive run of form, smashing Bollinger for consecutive boundaries in the first over.

Davey Jacobs; title-holder of the golden bat (most runs in the tournament) tried to play a ridiculous reverse sweep to a ball from the leading wicket taker in the tournament Ravichandran Ashwin. “Slow-death Koertzen” raised his finger in his last game and gave Jacobs out, to a stone-dead LBW.

The loss of Jacobs combined with the introduction of spin, brought the run rate down considerably and so pressure on the batsmen started to build.

Collin Ingram soon departed for a menial 16 from 23 balls after skying the ball to Raina off Morkel, bringing Mark Boucher to the wicket with the Warriors on 73/3 from 11 overs. The partnership between Ingram and Kreusch only yielded 21 runs from 26 balls.

Boucher struggled to time his shots ,only managing 5 off 11 balls before being bowled by Muralitharan, leaving the field and his team in trouble at 81 for 4. Later in the same over Muralitharan had Kreusch caught at mid-on, the Warriors now 82 for 5.

Craig Thyssen smashed Balaji for consecutive fours and then a six in the 17^th over to bring some respectability to the scorecard, but as soon as the Warriors got going they lost another wicket, this time Johan Botha going for the big shot, only to hit it straight to Anirudha.

Muralitharan bowled the last over in magnificent style. 1 W 12 – a fantastic end to a great bowling effort by CSK, the Warriors only managing to get 128/7. Muralitharan the pick of the bowlers returning figures of 4o 16r 3w 4.00rr

The Warriors gambled as they started the defense of their insignificant total by bowling Ntini first up instead of Rusty Theron – who has opened the bowling for the whole tournament. The CSK batsmen were never under pressure, the batsmen were assisted by some average bowling from Ntini, and a missed opportunity behind the stumps with the ball going between keeper and 1^st slip. General consensus was it was Boucher’s catch.

On his way to 58 from 53 balls, Murali Vijay added salt to the wounds of Davey Jacobs as he overtook him in the race for the golden bat – the leading run scorer  in the tournament.

It took the Warriors 15 overs  to take the first wicket. Shaun Pollock was commentating, he noted a few points on how the field wasn’t attacking enough, how the Warriors hadn’t forced the hand of the CSK batsmen  and, in doing so, exposed Jacobs’ inexperience as a captain. One has to ask why Johan Botha didn’t have more of an influence while in the field.

The opening partnership of 103 between Murali Vijay and David Hussey set the innings up for CSK. Hussey continued after the loss of Vijay to end his innings on 51 not out. MS Dhoni opened up in the second last over to take is team to a 8 wicket victory.

Chennai Super Kings were crowned Champions of the Champions League Twenty20, an accolade to add to their victory in the Indian Premier League 2010, earlier this year.

Group A Place Team Played Won Lost NRR Points 1 Chennai Super Kings 4 3 1 2.050 6 2 Chevrolet Warriors 4 3 1 0.588 6 3 Victorian Bushrangers 4 3 1 0.366 6 4 Wayamba Elevens 4 1 3 -1.126 2 5 Central Stags 4 0 4 -1.844 0

Group B

last update 21H05, 22 September 2010

The Royal Challengers Bangalore who thumped The West Indian team Guyana by 9 wickets on Sunday evening at Centurion have got in contact we me and would like to give you the chance to win some tickets to the Mumbai Indians v/s Royal Challengers Bangalore match on the 19th of September in Durban. I can assure you that this game will be sold out so you’ll probably have to win these tickets to get into the game.

Allyou need to do to win this opportunity is log in to www.royalchallengers.com and click on the Mighty14, fill out a form telling us why you are the most fanatic fan that RCB has and the wildest thing that you could do for RCB so that you could win a chance to be a part of the crowd at the stadium in Durban. 14 of the fans who applied to the contest will be selected via a lucky draw and they will not just win free tickets but also RCB merchandise that they can wear to the match!

So what are you waiting for, go sign up and let us know if you win! RCB has to be one of the best teams in the Champions League Twyenty20 this years, and with their impressive start I’m sure they’re on way to for filling my prediction.

The Champions League Twenty20 starts in about two weeks, so I thought I’d find out which players of note are actually coming out to entertain us. A few players qualified to play for their home teams as we’ll as their IPL franchises, so the rich kids had to pay $200 000 per player to the home teams.

The Warriors have therefore already won, the $200 000 (R 1,47 million) paid to the Warriors by RCB for the services of Kallis is more than the total prize money they won for both the MTN40 and Standard Bank Pro20 titles ( R750 000 and R300 000 respectively).

Here are some of the international  and South African players to look out for in the CLT20:

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Muttiah Muralitharan, Michael Hussey, Doug Bollinger, Albie Morkel, Matthew Hayden.

Warriors: Davy Jacobs, Ashwell Prince, Colin Ingram, Mark Boucher, Johan Botha, Nicky Boje, Craig Thyssen, Juan Theron, Makhaya Ntini, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Justin Kreusch, Garnett Kruger, Arno Jacobs, Lyall Meyer, Jon Jon Smuts.

Victoria: David Hussey, Brad Hodge, Bryce McGain, Dirk Nannes, Peter Siddle.

Wayamba: Mahela Jayawardene, Ajantha Mendis.

Central Districts: Jacob Oram.

Mumbai Indians: Sachin Tendulkar, Saurabh Tiwary, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, JP Duminy, Lasith Malinga, Ryan McLaren.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, , Virat Kohli, Cameron White, Ross Taylor, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis, Dillon du Preez.

South Australia: Callum Ferguson, Shaun Tait.

Guyana: Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine.

Lions: Alviro Peterson, Thami Tsolekile, Craig Alexander, Shane Burger, Richard Cameron, Werner Coetsee, Cliffe Deacon, Zander de Bruyn, Robert Frylinck, Neil McKenzie, Ethan O’Rielly, Aaron Phangiso, Jean Symes, Jonathan Vandiar, Vaughn van Jaarsveld.

On paper it looks like either a local SA team or one of the IPL franchises will take the trophy, the Warriors look particularly strong and have come off a brilliant season. The Mumbai Indians and Royal Challenger Bangalore also have strong squads, I’ll stick my neck out, Warriors v RCB in the final. This is T20 cricket though, pre-tournament predictions aren’t worth much!

In the opening game of the Champions League T20, the Cape Cobras (winners of the Standard Bank Pro20 2009) took on the Royal Challenger Bangalore (RCB) (runners up of the second IPL).

RCB batted first posting a good total of 180 runs, the main contributors to the RCB Innings were Robin Uthappa with his 51 runs from 39 balls and New Zealander Ross Taylor with 53 not out off 23 balls. Jacques Kallis didn’t add many as he was out for 8 runs from the bowling of Charl Langeveldt.

Langeveldt later left the field injured with bowling figures of 3 overs, 12 runs and 1 wicket. This is a major loss for the Cape Cobras as Langeveldt is easily the best T20 bowler in world cricket, there was talk that he could be out of the game for a few weeks with a shoulder injury.

With a good total on the scoreboard and playing at home, RCB must have been favored to win when Herschelle Gibbs was dismissed for a golden duck in the first over. Shortly after Gibbs’ dismissal Andrew Puttick followed leaving the Cape Cobras at 14/2.

Enter JP Duminy; Duminy took control of the RCB bowlers very quickly, hitting Jacques Kallis for consecutive boundaries. Duminy hit the bowlers all over the park in a quality innings, knocking up 99* off just 52 balls, which included five 6’s and eight 4’s. Duminy was unlucky not to have reached what would have been his maiden T20 century. He hit a 6 followed by a single, which left the game tied and himself stranded on 99*,  Rory Kleinveldt finished off the game with two balls remaining.

Congratulations to JP Duminy for his 99* of 52 balls which earned him the man of the match award, and put the Cape Cobras in a good position.