SPORTS

HYDERABAD DECCAN: The only unbeaten team in the Champions League, Trinidad & Tobago, produced another compelling performance oozing with Caribbean flair to knock the Cape Cobras out of the tournament and set up a summit clash against New South Wales.

The second semi-final wasn't anywhere near as one-sided as the first, though, and T&T and the Cobras traded blow for blow, wrestling for the ascendancy until Dwayne Bravo's first significant contribution with the bat in the competition was the deciding blow on a thrilling evening in Hyderabad.

T&T raised their intensity at crucial moments: when the Cobras' openers had made a fast start, when the middle-order batsmen batted with aggression and by conceding only two runs off the final over after Bravo had conceded 20 off the previous one.

The Cobras, on the other hand, failed to contain T&T's thrilling opening combination and dropped an appalling number of catches, which allowed Bravo and Daren Ganga to script a match-winning 93-run partnership.

The T&T approach to batting has been sheer entertainment during the Champions League and they did not let the pressure of chasing 175 in a semi-final cramp their style.

Their openers, Adrian Barath and Wayne Perkins, targeted Monde Zondeki for most of the early runs. Barath played with flamboyance and cut him for four, drove for six, and whipped to the leg side boundary to take 16 off the second over.

Perkins stole the spotlight soon after, with a cheeky hat-trick of fours in the fourth. Andrew Puttick gave Rory Kleinveldt a go, but he leaked 15 off his first five balls - six of those a result of a towering cut by Barath over point.

T&T had raced to 53 off 4.5 overs when a misjudged single led to Perkins' run out.

Barath followed soon after, for 29 off 16, when he played back to Duminy and was trapped in front. But just when the Cobras had an opening, their fielding went to pieces. Lendl Simmons was dropped in successive overs by Henry Davids, and though those errors didn't cost the Cobras much, the next one hurt them plenty.

The spinners had brought T&T's run-rate down and there had been no boundaries for 31 balls until Bravo pulled Justin Ontong for six in the 13th over.

The asking-rate was still steep - T&T needed 68 off 38 balls - when Bravo offered Ontong a catch at long-on and was dropped. The Cobras never found a way back.

Ontong watched Ganga loft the next ball over his head for six, before Bravo cut loose in Vernon Philander's next over, hitting consecutive sixes over long-off and extra cover.

The asking-rate went into freefall thereafter with the batsmen finding the boundary in every over.

Bravo brought up his half-century off 31 balls by lofting Charl Langeveldt through cover, and finished the game with four balls to spare by pulling Kleinveldt to the midwicket boundary.