Nervous Victoria scrape through to next round

Chasing a small target is sometimes tricky, the balance between an attacking approach and a defensive one is delicate. Victoria began their pursuit of Wayamba's 118 by going hard at everything on a sluggish pitch but at the half-way stage of the chase the Australian side had lost its way. Having recorded the Champions League's lowest score after ten overs - 37 for 2 - Victoria refocused and concentrated on reaching 84, the total needed to ensure qualification for the second round on the basis of net run-rate.

Both teams had played one match in Delhi and so they knew what the pitch held in store. The best formula to succeed in the Twenty20 format is to adapt on the run but Victoria found the going tough. "We were thinking of winning the game but the conditions were difficult and our priority was (then) to get through the next round," Brad Hodge said, when asked if the pressure and the pitch forced the batsmen to change their priorities. He and his team-mates, with the exception of Andrew McDonald, were rarely able to dominate the Wayamba attack in challenging conditions.

Moises Henriques, the young New South Wales allrounder who has had success at the Kotla, had talked about "scrambling to get to the other end" being one of the best ways to get used to the surface. According to Henriques it allowed him to settle down initially and later he could determine clearly which balls to attack.

None of Victoria's batsmen exhibited Henriques' confidence. They lost two early wickets and their most experienced batsmen - Hodge and David Hussey - stagnated against Wayamba's suffocating lines. The batsmen tried to hit hard but their efforts found the fielders. In the first five overs, with field restrictions in place, Victoria hit only two fours and a six. Their next boundary came off the fourth ball of the 11th over.

Hussey's innings - 7 off 22 balls - came to an end when he played on, trying to hit too hard when the ball was too close to his body. The safer, and productive, option would have been to play with soft hands and nudge the ball into the gaps. Cameron White hit Ajantha Mendis over long-on for the second six of the innings to ease Victoria's nerves but his side was still struggling.

McDonald's arrival finally gave the chase direction and the allrounder stole singles to move Victoria steadily towards the qualification target. Once they were close enough, McDonald attacked Kaushal Lokuarachchi, hitting the legspinner for three fours and a six to eliminate Wayamba.

Wayamba were the eventual winners, by 15 runs, but it was of little consolation to them. They were aware that they would need at least 130-140 if they batted first - given the net run-rate situation - and yet they held Mahela Jayawardene, their best batsman, back to No. 4. By the time he arrived at the crease in the 15th over, Jayawardene barely had any time to make an impact. In the field Jayawardene's prowess as a catcher, particularly at slip, is renowned but today he kept wicket for Wayamba with little success. He missed a stumping of White, a potential turning point in a tight game. In the end, though, it was Wayamba's inability to post a slightly larger total that led to their elimination from the Champions League.