Arnold ushers Superstars to convincing win over Rockets

Gurgaon, Mar 27 (UNI) An excellent 112-run partnership between Rusell Arnold and Hemang Badani guided Chennai Superstars to a convincing 22-run win over Ahmedabad Rockets in the ICL's Edelweiss 20s challenge played at Tau Devi Lal stadium here tonight.

The task for Rockets became further difficult as Superstars' strike bowler Shabbir Ahmed gave nothing away and claimed four important wickets.

Earlier, after electing to bat first Superstars were in a spot of trouble when both their openers were back in the dugout in just the second over of the match but did well to reach a competitive total of 161.

Opener Ian Harvey hit the first ball of Superstars' innings for a boundary but a confusion in the middle with Ganpati Vignesh led to his runout in that very over.

However, a 112-run partnership between Russel Arnold and Hemang Badani for the fourth wicket led to the Superstars' revival.

Arnold, with the help of six boundaries and a six, scored 69 runs while Badani complimented his senior partner well to score 45 runs off 47 balls.

The left-handed Sri Lankan was awarded man of the match for his superb knock.

Surprisingly, Sriram was given the ball to bowl the second over for Rockets ahead of Jason Gillespie and Heath Streak but he kept his captain's faith as he clean bowled Vignesh (11 off 7 balls) in that very over.

Jason Gillespie was the pick of the bowlers for Rockets as he claimed three wickets in his four overs and accounted for Badani and Arnold's dismissal in the last overs of the Superstars' innings.

Superstars have now assured themselves a place in the semifianls of the tournament while Rockets' hopes of getting in to the last four were over with this loss against the defending champions.

Scoreboard Chennai Superstars innings Ian Harvey run out 5 G Vignesh b Sriram 11 Russel Arnold c Sanjeev b Gillespie 69 Stuart Law b Gillespie 10 Hemang Badani c Tamarkar b Gillespie 45 R Sathish not out 1 SV Saravanan not out 0 Extras (lb 8, w 8, nb 4) 20 Total (in 20 overs) 161 for 5 Fall of wickets 1/8, 2/19, 3/48, 4/160, 5/160 Bowling Abhishek Tamarkar 2-0-25-0, S Sriram 4-0-29-1 Heath Streak 4-0-33-0, Jason Gillespie 4-0-25-3 Martin Sanjeev 2-0-20-0, Wavel Hinds 2-0-11-0 Anshu Jain 2-0-10-0 Ahmedabad Rockets innings Wavel Hinds c Parore b Vignesh 21 Damien Martyn lbw b Shabbir Ahmed 7 Murray Goodwin run out 8 Parviz Aziz c sub b Syed Mohammed 24 S Sriram c Harvey b Shabbir Ahmed 30 AS Jain c Sathish b Harvey 20 Heath Streak b Kumaran 10 M Sanjeev b Shabbir Ahmed 2 Jason Gillespie b Shabbir Ahmed 2 PP Vora not out 3 A Tamarkar b Harvey 0 Extras (b 1, lb 7, w 1, nb 3) 12 Total (in 19.4 overs) 139 allout Fall of wickets 1/21, 2/38, 3/39, 4/80, 5/106, 6/119, 7/123, 8/129, 9/134 Bowling Shabbir Ahmed 4-0-20-4 G Vignesh 4-0-22-1 T Kumaran 3-0-24-1 Ian Harvey 3.4-0-21-2 Syed Mohammed 4-0-27-1 SV Saravanan 1-0-17-0 UNI RAR GT GC2310