Akmal, Lions spinners knock Dolphins out

Robbie Frylinck's all-round display on his birthday was not enough to stop Dolphins from becoming the first side to be knocked out of the tournament in a game that looked a lot closer in the end than it actually was. Frylinck was solely responsible for that deception, as he blitzed an incredible, unbeaten 63 off 27 deliveries after Dolphins had crumbled to 93 for 9 against the Lahore Lions spinners in a chase of 165. With 72 needed off the last four overs, Frylinck took 41 off the 17th and 18th overs before Lions managed to weather the unexpected storm.

Dolphins had earlier let Lions recover from 34 for 4 on an unusually slow and turning Bangalore surface. Umar Akmal was the architect of the recovery with an unbeaten 73 off 45, and Saad Nasim's 43 off 26 was a worthy support act. The pair added 92 in under nine overs, after which Mohammad Hafeez let loose his army of spinners on the Dolphins batsmen, who tried to slog their way out of cluelessness and only managed to get themselves out.

It was Frylinck doing early damage with the ball too after Lions chose to bat. Offering no pace with his cutters on his way to 3 for 22, he claimed Ahmed Shehzad and Nasir Jamshed in his first two overs. When Hafeez too succumbed to the lack of pace as he played on off Cameron Delport, Lions were down to 34 for 4, and it was already the eighth over.

Akmal adapted superbly to the conditions. He played square only when he had width, and made sure he picked the gaps when he did so. When he hit, he mostly lofted straight. He was put down by the wicketkeeper Morne van Wyk off Prenelan Subrayen when he was on 20 off 19, and took 53 off the next 26.

The very next over after being reprieved, he lofted the left-arm spin of Keshav Maharaj for a couple of sixes, and then cut and pulled Andile Phehlukwayo's short ones for three boundaries.

Nasim played an intelligent knock, making sure he put the bad deliveries away. When Subrayen bowled his offspin without a deep midwicket, Nasim, deposited him for successive sixes over the same region.

While Lions prospered against spin, Dolphins capitulated. Barring van Wyk and Jonathan Vandiar, none of the top seven seemed keen to bat with sense. Even as van Wyk kept finding the boundary with ease, his partners kept throwing their wickets away. Van Wyk could not keep a cut down off Nasim on 36 while Vandiar holed out in the deep for 29.

It was free-fall for the rest, and Dolphins' discomfort was so obvious that till 14 overs, Hafeez had used only two of his pacers. When he did bring back Wahab Riaz and Aizaz Cheema, Frylinck set about them in a stunning display of power-hitting. Riaz was taken for three successive fours in the 17th while Cheema was dismissed for four sixes over long-on in the 18th.

With 31 needed off 12 now, Hafeez went back to spin, and Frylinck was unable to take more than a four off Mustafa Iqbal in the 19th. Last man Subrayen consumed the first two balls each of the last two overs, and Frylinck could not do an encore against Riaz with four successive sixes needed to take it to a Super Over.