McMillan's knock lights up LB stadium

Hyderabad, Oct 16 (UNI) Eighth match of the ICL 20s Indian Championship featured the revamped Royal Bengal Tigers take on the formidable Delhi Giants at the LB stadium Hyderabad. Both sides came into the match having won their respective tournament openers.

McMillan won the toss and elected to bat, wanting to take advantage of the batting friendly wicket and putting up a good total upfront.

The Tigers opened with their in-form opening combination of Marshall and Dasgupta. The 4th over stage saw the openers put the Tigers in the drivers' seat at 33 for no loss. Trying to steal a single of a misfiled, found the inform Hamish Marshal short of his crease, packed back to the Tigers dugout cutting short his promising innings of 23 off 13 balls. Superstar Bond struck again in the same over, getting the prodigal Jhunjhunwala for a duck to leave the Tigers in bit of both at 37/2 in the 5th over.

The fall of the 2nd wicket brought the experienced McMillan to the middle, getting into the repair act right away in company of Dasgupta. The 29 run partnership between the two was ended when the wily Ali Murtaza castled'[email protected]' Dasgupta in the 9th over, stealing the initiative right back for the Giants.

McMillan was not perturbed by the fall of wickets and by the 11th over, took the Tigers on a solid 87/3.

McMillan was playing a skippers knock&in company of the dangerous Klusener, set the Tigers for the perfect onslaught with five overs to go at 114/3. McMillan scored 22 runs of the 16th over from Bali before falling off the fifth ball of the same over, to end his brilliant innings of 69 off 40 balls; including 4 massive sixes and seven fours. A 22 off 23 balls from the great Zulu saw the Tigers fold their innings at a very competitive 171/7 in their allotted 20 overs.

Brief Scores: Royal Bengal Tigers 171/7 in 20 overs (McMillan 69, Dasgupta 26, Murtaza 2/19) UNI XR/DB AB KN2200