Champions League Twenty20 - Deccan charge towards second round

Deccan Chargers vs Trinidad and Tobago

Wednesday, October 14, 10am

Twenty20 Tournament Odds:

Trinidad and Tobago +175

Despite Trinidad and Tobago being rank outsiders in their clash against Deccan Chargers in the final match of the group stage of the Champions League Twenty20 tournament, the West Indies only team in the competition has the ability to spring an upset.

If they do go ahead and beat Deccan it will allow the other unheralded team of the group, the Somerset Sharks into the next stage of the competition and heap plenty of embarrassment onto the multi-million dollar Indian Premier League franchise.

Deccan, who amazingly have never won a match on their home pitch in Hyderabad in eight outings, have it all ahead of them.

Their big names must fire or they face the real prospect of dropping out of this tournament.

Despite an early assault by VVS Laxman and Adam Gilchrist in their opening match against Somerset, which they lost no less, Deccan’s middle order failed Tirumalasetti Suman  and disgraced former Australian  international Andrew Symonds unable to make any head way into a paltry bowling attack.

Symonds is the key man here. Well known for his explosive hitting, he is yet to find his feet in Twenty20 and although he has long been considered a match winner in the one-day arena for Australia and his state team of Queensland, he has yet to transfer that brutality across to T20.

There is a lot of pressure on him to make a big score if given the chance and the owners of the IPL franchise will be using this match as a good reason to reduce his payments come the next tournament.

T&T have a nice and varied spin attack. Samuel Badree throws down leg-spin Sherwin Ganga is the team’s off-spinner while Dave Mohammed adds chinaman flair however their main attacking weapon is former West Indies international Dwayne Bravo.

Bravo ripped through Somerset taking 4/23 off his four overs, two of the top order and two at the bottom.

If T&T are to keep Deccan to a reachable total, they will need Bravo and Ravi Rampaul to tear through the likes of Laxman, Gilchrist, Symonds and Kiwi international Scott Styris in the middle order.

The odds are stacked in Deccan’s favour but there is still a strong argument for T&T to spring that upset if they are on top of their game.