CANADA WINS OMAN NAIL BITER
By Blarnee Stoned
Exclusive to CanadaCricketOnline
MUCKAMORE Northern Ireland: It was a rare sunny, hot day in this green, bucolic setting deep in what was once the heart of Irish linen country. But Canada managed to make heavy weather of an underrated Oman and barely lived to tell another tale in the ICC Trophy with a nail-biting two-wicket win.
It took a desperate eighth-wicket stand of 43 between ice-cool Ian Billcliff (33 not out) and veteran campaigner George Codrington (18) to save the day after Oman's top-heavy batting order had raced to 119-1 before you could locate this tiny Middle East oil kingdom on a map.
Hemin Desai (76), Adnan Sulehri (31) and Sultan Ahmed (42) tore into the Canadian pace attack, augmented today by former Ugandan paceman Henry Osinde (0-29) making his Canadian debut. The three quickies had to share a solitary wicket ( Don Maxwell 1-43, Sanjay Thuraisingham 0-17) between them while conceding 89 runs in 21 overs.
It wasn't until miserly spinners Sunil Dhaniram (3-30 off 10 overs) and Kevin Sandher (3-31 off 8.5 overs) were introduced that the runaway scoring rate dropped. Dhaniram had Desai smarty stumped by Pubudu Dassanakaye and Sulehri caught at long off by Codrington while Sandher bowled Ahmed. Once the top layer of the order was peeled away the Oman batting fell apart, the last seven batsmen conspiring to make up some sultan's telephone number of 220-1162 as the Canadians fielded like beavers running out three batsmen.
In an obvious bid to boost the overall runrate should that become the tiebreaker at the end of the first round of matches, Canada promoted Thuraisingham to the opening slot. Together with skipper John Davison (74) he helped post 69 for the first wicket stand before departing for 17, caught behind assaying the sweep shot.
Davison continued in his usual belligerent mood threatening to frighten the fish in the Six Mile River adjoining the ground, but only Desmond Chumney (29) of the recognized batsmen stuck around for long after Davison was caught on the boundary. Chumney, who looked set for a big score, also persished in the same fashion. Dhaniram was caught driving a shortish delivery before he had found his groove; Zubin Surkari was bowled first ball trapped playing neither forward nor back and Maxwell also departed for a duck caught at slip driving the spinner Rakesh Sharna before he had got his sightings. At 140-6 chasing 184, Canada seemed on the brink of catastrophe when a mix-up between Billciff and Dassanayake resulted in the latter also neglecting to trouble the scorers as he failed to beat the fieldsman's throw.
But Billcliff was once again rock solid, driving fluently all along the carpet while Codrington mixed solid bat-and-pad forward defence with deft nudges and drives into the gaps. With only Sandher and Osinde to come, the pair slowly and carefully took the score to two runs short of victory before Codrington was bowled. Then a short one from Sharna sat up nicely for Bilcliiff to whack it to the midwicket boundary.
Canada plays the Netherlands Tuesday in a make-or-break match-up. The winner will likely book their seat to the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean as the top two from each pf the two groups automatically qualify.