Tanveer, Hales shine as Vipers beat Warriorz to notch up sixth win

 Mohammad Abdullah, Senior Sports Reporter

 Riding on Khuzaima Tanveer’s four-wicket haul and Alex Hales blitzkrieg 77, Desert Vipers defeated Sharjah Warriorz by eight wickets at their home ground in an ILT20 match at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Tanveer wreaked havoc as Vipers restricted Warriorz to 151/8, and chased won the target for the loss of just two wickets with five overs and one ball to spare.

Tanveer became the first player to pick up four wickets on debut in ILT20. He took four wickets, conceding only 22 runs, which derailed the Warriorz’s innings.

Defending, Warriorz did make some in-roads as they got rid of Fakhar Zaman and Dan Lawerence on the same score to make it 24/2. But the Warriorz's bowlers failed to capitalise on the start and could not stop Hales and Sam Curran who shared an unbeaten 128-run stand for the third wicket to take the Vipers over the line.

Hales was in devastating form as he smashed a 42-ball 77 with the help of seven boundaries and six sixes to all but put an end to Warriorz's hopes of come-from-behind victory.

He was well-supported by Curran, who also smacked an unbeaten 54 off 34 deliveries. His innings was studded with five hits to the boundary and two over it.

Both the batsmen played with determination and made light work of the target as Vipers notched up sixth victory from the seventh match to tighten grip on the top.

Earlier, Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Jason Roy steadied the innings with a 58-run partnership after Warriorz lost the two wickets early in the innings.

Johnson Charles and Avishka Fernando’s failure with the bat continued for the second successive match.

Charles was the first man to go as Warriors lost the first wicket with just four runs on the board. Payne gave the Vipers the first breakthrough by getting Charles caught behind the wicket.

In his next over, Payne got rid of Fernando as he was taken by Hose at deep midwicket. Warriorz lost two wickets for 17. They needed somebody to play a sheet-anchor role to post a challenging total.

Kohler-Cadmore and Roy combined to do the repair work. They knuckled down to mend the faltering innings. Both the batsmen kept the scoreboard ticking with singles and doubles and hit occasional boundaries.

They frustrated the Vipers bowlers and brought the innings back on the track. At one stage, Warriorz were 74/2 and looked poised to post a total of 180 plus. Vipers bowlers were struggling to break the partnership.

Hasaranga broke the dangerous-looking partnership. He flighted the ball to lure Kohler-Cadmore, who came down the track to hit over the top. But the wily spinner threw it wide as Kohler-Cadmore missed the ball completely and an agile Azam Khan took the bails off to give Vipers the much-needed breakthrough.

The dismissal of Kohler-Cadmore brought respite to the Vipers’ camp. Roy continued to lead the fightback as he added another 42 runs for the fourth with Tim Siefert to take the score to 117. Roy was the more brutal of the two as he did most of the scoring. Roy raced to his fifty in just 34 balls with the help of eight boundaries.

Khuzaima Tanveer broke the partnership to bring Vipers back into the game, who were struggling to stop the flow of the runs. The dismissal of Seifert opened the floodgates for Vipers’ bowlers in general and for Tanveer in particular. He uprooted the stumps of Seifert to make it 117/4.

Four balls later, Tanveer struck again to rattled the stumps of Rohana Mustafa. Two wickets in quick-succession pushed the Warriorz on the back foot again.

Former Pakistani pace spearhead Mohammad Amir, who was the hero of the last match, also sprang into action and dismantled the bails of Roy as Warriors lost three wickets within a space of eight runs to be reduced to 125/6 from 117/3.

With three overs remaining in the innings, Warriorz needed someone to play a quick-fire cameo to take them to a fighting total.

Ashton Agar turned out to be the man who smashed a quick-fire 15 off 8 deliveries but he did not get the support from the other end.

In his next over, Tanveer sent back Luke Warm and Tim Southee in his next over to complete his four-wicket haul as Warriorz could manage to muster 151/8 in 20 overs.