Cairns' 70 lead Lions to beat Champs

Panchkula:

Skipper Chris Cairns hit an explosive 70 as Chandigarh Lions scored a 38 run victory over Mumbai Champs in ICL's Twenty20 tournament in Panchkula on Sunday night.

Lions piled up 219 runs, tournament's highest total so far, to beat Brian's Lara's Mumbai Champs who slumped to their fourth defeat and were ousted from the competition tonight.

Lara's miserable run with the bat continued as he could manage only 9 in Champs total of 181-5.

Lara, who opened the innings, hit a Darly Tuffey delivery straight to Hamish Marshall. In previous three matches, the legendary batsman had scores 0, 4 and 3.

Cairns was in devastating touch as hit the fastest 50 of the tournament, which came in just 17 balls.

The 7,000 capacity Tau Devi Lal stadium was brought alive as Cairns showed no mercy to the bowlers. His knock of 70 in 26 balls included 7 sixes and four boundaries.

M Dillon and Raviraj Patil faced the music and were the most expensive bowlers for Champs giving away 46 runs each in the allotted four overs.

Cairns got support from Manish Sharma (37). Imran Farhat (34) and T P Singh (27) were the other contributors.

Champs opener Nathan Astle failed to make much impact falling LBW to Luv Ablish on 13.

K R Powar scored a quickfire 54 of 30 balls, but after his exit even the late charge by D S Jadhav (58) and J Van der Wath (17) could not bring the Champs close to the huge target as they required 74 in the last three overs.

Champs will play their final match against Kolkata Tigers on Monday while Lions have won three of their five matches and have got six points.