Shanaka cameo hands Capitals 2nd successive win with Giants romp

Dasun Shanaka played a blitzkrieg cameo of 10-ball 34 to steal the show as Dubai Capitals defeated Gulf Giants by five wickets in their ILT20 match in Dubai on Thursday.

After restricting Giants to 153/5, Capitals achieved the target with eight balls to spare to notch up a second consecutive victory to move from bottom of the table to the third spot in the six-team league.

Chasing, Capitals were off to a decent start as their opening pair of Ben Dunk and Shai Hope added 24 runs for the first wicket. Aayan Afzal Khan seemed to have picked up whence he left in the last match. He got rid of Khalid Shah, who holed out to Hetmyer.

Gulbadin Naib, the architect of Capitals’ victory against Desert Vipers, and Hope shared a 19-run stand for the third to take the score to 60 before Aayan struck again to give the third blow to Capitals.

He trapped Gulabdin, who was looking in blistering form, to pick up his second wicket. Gulabdin asked for the decision review but the TV umpire upheld the verdict of the on-field umpire. Gulabdin hit four fours in his 16-ball 17.

With the top three batsmen back in the pavilion and still 93 runs needed to win, Capitals had a long way to go. The hopes of Capitals were resting on Hope to take them through.

The West Indian batsman was waging a lone war as wickets kept on falling on the other end. Zuhaib Zubair had Najibullah Zadran caught by Erasmus to leave Capitals in tatters as they lost fourth wicket with just 77 runs on the board.

Every time the Capitals tried to take a stride, they were pegged back by two by the Giants bowlers. The onus of taking the Capitals through fell on the shoulders of Hope and Sikander Raza.

Hope and Raza added 33 runs for the fifth wicket to take the match as deep as possible. They brought the equation down to 44 needed off 24 deliveries.

With the asking run rate climbing beyond more than 10 per over, Capitals needed someone to cut loose. Shanaka took 18 runs off Muzarabani in the 17th over with the help of two fours and one six to tilt the game in Capitals’ favour.

The duo took nine runs off the next over as Capitals needed 17 runs in the last two overs. But Shanaka had different plans. He did not want to leave anything to chance as he smacked two sixes and a four in 19th over bowled by Dominic Drakes to take Capitals past the target.

Earlier, Vince gave an explosive start to the Giants as he added 23 runs for the first wicket with Ibrahim Zadran. Vince made his intentions clear from the beginning.

He took 10 runs off Chameera in the second over with the help of two boundaries. In the next over, he hit McCoy for a boundary before the bowler fought back to dismiss Zadran as Giants lost their first wicket with 23 runs on the board.

The dismissal of Zadran choked the flow of runs as the Giants went in defensive mode. In the next four overs, they could add just 17 runs.

Giants kept on losing the wickets at regular intervals and failed to get the partnerships going. Chameera got rid of Vince by getting him caught by wicket-keeper to make it 41/2.

Zaheer Khan rattled the stumps of Tom Alsop as Giants lost two wickets in quick succession to be pushed on the backfoot. The Giants needed someone to play a sheet-anchor role to bring the faltering inning back on the track.

Gerhard Erasmus and Jordan Cox came together for the rescue. They knuckled down to build the innings. Both the batsmen played sensibly and added 69 runs for the fourth wicket. The pair kept the Capitals bowlers at bay. Cox was the more brutal of the two as he did most of the scoring.

Cox and Erasmus played patiently and kept the scoreboard ticking with singles and doubles, hitting occasional boundaries to maintain the run rate.

The Capitals bowlers were getting frustrated with the growing partnership which had started looking dangerous. They needed to break the partnership to stop Giants from posting a huge total.

Afghanistan bowler Naib broke the partnership to give Capitals the much-needed breakthrough and bring respite to their camp. Erasmus was taken by Shanaka at deep mid-wicket while trying to pull away Naib.

West Indies batsman Shimron Hetmyer joined Cox to take forward the proceedings. Cox shared another vital partnership of 36 runs with Hetmyer, who struck an unbeaten 17 off 15 balls.

Cox was found short of his ground when Hopes dislodged the bails with a direct throw. Cox innings was studded with four boundaries and one six.

Mohammad Abdullah