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Super Smash 2021 22 Match Review Northern Knights Cement Top Spot After A Rampant Victory Over Central Stags

Super Smash 2021-22 | Match Review: Northern Knights cement top spot after a rampant victory over Central Stags

Northern Knights came on top as they beat Central Stags by six wickets today at the Pukekura Park. Chasing 146 to win, Jeet Raval anchored the chase as he remained unbeaten on 66 from 46 balls. Supporting him first at the other end was Joe Carter who scored a brisk 32 off 27.

The partnership for the 3rd wicket almost guaranteed their victory as they put up 74 runs. Following the demolition of that partnership, Colin de Grandhomme departed early but the unbeaten cameo of 25 runs from 12 balls from Henry Cooper sealed the deal for the Knights with 13 balls to spare. Apart from Joey Field nobody looked threatening as he ended up with his figures of 4-0-28-2.

Earlier, Northern Knights won the toss and asked the Stags to bat first. The Stags couldn't get off to a steady start as their openers fell cheaply. They wouldn’t have recovered without their keeper-batter, Dane Cleaver, who took responsibility, scoring a brilliant 65 (42). There were no big partnerships during the innings as they lost wickets at regular intervals. In the end, Doug Bracewell’s 36*(28) got them to a respectable total of 145/8.

Scott Kuggeleijn was the pick of the bowlers as he demolished the Stags batting line-up with his accurate line and lengths. His figures were outstanding as they read 3-0-22-3. Meanwhile, the rest of the bowlers also didn't leak too many runs and kept it tight.

As mentioned earlier, in the chase, it was the efforts from skipper Rawal and cameos from Carter & Cooper that took the Knights home. With this win, the Knights stay firm at the top with 18 points from six matches. Although the Stags lost this encounter they are still in third place with twelve points.

The Central Stags will face the Canterbury Kings on December 31, 2021, at Pukekura Park in New Plymouth while the Knights will play against the Stags on January 14, 2022, at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui.

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SA vs IND | 1st Test | Twitter reacts as India breach yet another fortress, beat Proteas at Centurion

The Indian cricket team has ended its year on a high in Test cricket as it breached yet another fortress to register yet another memorable win. The year which started with Ajinkya Rahane’s second-string Indian team beating the Australian side on its fortress Gabba to lift the Test series 2-1, ended with the Virat Kohli’s men becoming the first Asian side to register a Test victory at Centurion in South Africa. In this match, it wasn’t easy at all to bat and was shown in the collapses that both sides had in the game. Thus the first innings tota of India would now be regarded as the key point in the game. The century by Lokesh Rahul and a good hand by Mayank Agarwal and Ajinkya Rahane to take the team past 300 was very crucial as in the second, third and fourth innings, neither of the two teams was able to get past even the 200 run mark. Similarly, Mohammad Shami was on the mark right from the word go as he took five wickets in the first innings, playing an important role in restricting South Africa to 199. In the second innings too, his three wickets came at very crucial junctures in the game and stopped the Proteas from trying to save the game. From South Africa’s point of view, Dean Elgar and Temba Bavuma were the two batters who tried to occupy the crease as there was a lack of application from the rest of the top order batters. As for bowlers, Lungi Ngidi, Kagiso Rabada and debutant Marco Jansen all bowled with purpose, but it was mainly the batters who failed big time.

SA vs IND | 1st Test, Day 5: India quash Proteas' resistance, become first Asian side to win in Centurion

India quashed South Africa’s resistance right after the lunch interval on the fifth and final day to win the first Test and went 1-0 up in the three-match long. Coming into the final day, India needed to take six wickets while South Africa needed 211 runs to win the game. The unbeaten batsman Dean Elgar and Temba Bavuma led a strong fightback with a rapid first hour where they hit boundaries but Jasprit Bumrah once again put his hands up and dismissed Elgar. Quinton de Kock could not last long although he hit a brisk 21 and handed Mohammad Siraj his second wicket of the innings. Mohammad Siraj produced two jaffas to dismiss Wian Mulder and Marco Jansen and Ravichandran Ashwin came into the picture with the last two wickets of Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi. India won the game by 113 runs and will wait for South Africa to respond in the remaining two games of the series to be played in Johannesburg and Cape Town. India quashed South Africa’s resistance right after the lunch interval on the fifth and final day to win the first Test and become the first Asian team to win a Test match at the SuperSport Park in Centurion. Coming into the final day, India needed to take six wickets while South Africa needed 211 runs to win the game. The unbeaten batsman Dean Elgar and Temba Bavuma led a strong fightback with a rapid first hour where they hit boundaries but Jasprit Bumrah once again put his hands up and dismissed Elgar. Quinton de Kock could not last long although he hit a brisk 21 and handed Mohammad Siraj his second wicket of the innings. Mohammad Siraj produced two jaffas to dismiss Wian Mulder and Marco Jansen and Ravichandran Ashwin came into the picture with the last two wickets of Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi. India won the game by 113 runs and have taken a 1-0 lead in the series. They will now wait for South Africa to respond in the remaining two games of the series to be played in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

SA vs IND | 1st Test, Day 5: Bavuma fight on but India smell victory after eliminating Elgar threat

Team India is three wickets away while South Africa are 132 runs away from winning the first Test of the series and taking a 1-0 lead in the three-match long series. The hosts started the fifth and final day of the game at 94/4 and scored at a brisk pace to extend their score to 182 runs at the lunch interval on the final day. However, Indian pacers bowled enough wicket-taking deliveries to eliminate the prized wicket of Dean Elgar to start a mini-collapse in the first session. Quinton de Kock was looking to attack the Indian bowlers but Mohammad Siraj was all over him with his variation off the pitch. He failed in multiple attempts of square cuts but finally, Siraj got him played on to his stumps. Mohammad Shami came back to produce a jaffa and extracted the outside edge of Wiaan Mulder’s bat to leave South Africa seven down. Temba Bavuma has been the rock standing solidly between South Africa’s defeat and an Indian win in Centurion and Virat Kohli and company will be desperate to see his back right after the lunch interval.

Quaid-E-Azam Trophy | Final | Iftikhar Ahmed leads KPK to record fifth domestic title in two years

It was routine work by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the Quaid-E-Azam Trophy 2021 final as it defeated Northern and won yet another final and its record fifth domestic title in as many competitions in the last two years, becoming the first-ever side to be able to do that. The day-night Test first of its kind for a domestic or international game in Pakistan lasted for full five days as Northern were eventually all out in only the 46th over, chasing a target of 384 on the last day. There was no other option for Northern but to go for the kill as they were trailing in the game on the basis of the first inning’s lead. Sajid Khan was among the wickets for the KPK side as he took a five-wicket haul in the innings to add to his tally of four wickets from the first innings in the game. It was his five-wicket haul that actually finished the job. But it was started by his captain Iftikhar Ahmed as he broke the second wicket partnership between the triple centurion from the previous game, Mohammad Huraira and Northern skipper Umar Amin. After the end of that 78 run stand between the two, there wasn’t much resistance from others. Earlier in the game, Riding on Iftikhar’s century, KPK scored 374 runs in the first innings. The skipper was helped by a 68 from Asif Afridi and 45 from opener Ashfaq Ahmed. For Northern Apart from Huraira’s, Sarmad Bhatti’s and Haider Ali’s fifties, no other batter was able to put in much effort and as a result, they rolled over for 256 in their first innings. In their second innings, KPK were helped by fifty from experienced Fakhar Zaman at the top and a quickfire 79 from wicketkeeper batter Rehan Afridi. Courtesy of those two innings, the team from the North-West part of Pakistan managed to get to 265 and set a target of 384 for Northern to chase in the last innings. This is the fifth title for KPK in the five tournaments they have played in the last two seasons. They won the Quaid-E-Azam Trophy for the 2020 edition as well as they shared it with Central Punjab. Along with it, they won back to back National T20 titles in the year 2020 and 2021 and also won the 50-over competition, the Pakistan Cup’s 2020-21 edition. If they are able to win the 2021-22 edition of the One Day tournament, then they would become the first team to complete the triplet of winning all formats of domestic tournaments twice.