Blazing Cairns roars in Lions' win

Panchkula: Captain Chris Cairns demolished the Mumbai Champs attack en route to 70 runs from just 26 balls to fire Chandigarh Lions effectively into the semi-final of the edition of the Indian Cricket League, condemning the Champs to their fourth successive defeat by 38 runs here on Sunday.

Cairns' blazing knock spurred the Lions to the highest ever score in a Twenty20 game in India, beating the previous best of Haryana against Services in a domestic game.

Mumbai Champs, languishing at the bottom without a single win in the tournament so far, put in an inspired run chase without contributions from skipper Brian Lara, who fell for his fourth straight single-figure score (9), and Nathan Astle (13) and Vikram Solanki (14).

Kiran Powar cracked a spectacular 54 from 30 balls, while Dheeraj Jadhav remained unbeaten on 58, but the ever climbing run rate saw their innings end on 181-5.

Cairns littered the Tau Devi Lal stadium with seven massive sixes and four boundaries, and the rest of the side, too, contributed with the bat to pile on the agony for the Brian Lara-led Champs, who are yet to register a win in the competition, on a day that saw the Tau Devi Lal stadium come alive with a dazzling dance performance from item girl Malaika Arora Khan.

Cairns reached his half-century off 17 balls, also a record, on his way to 70, before falling to ex-New Zealand teammate Nathan Astle in the 18th over after he elected to bat first.

Teams:

Chandigarh Lions: Chris Cairns (captain), Imran Farhat, Hamish Marshall, TP Singh, Manish Sharma, Dinesh Mongia, Andrew Hall, Sarabjit Singh, Chetan Sharma, Daryl Tuffey, Luv Ablish.

Mumbai Champs: Brian Lara (captain), Dheeraj Jadhav, Nathan Astle, Vikram Solanki, Kiran Powar, Subhojit Paul, Johan Van Der Wath, Mervyn Dillon, Rakesh Patel, Avinash Yadav, Sridher Iyer.

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