Kings knocked out of T20 play-off by Knights

The Northern Knights claimed top spot and a home final in the

Twenty20 Super Smash series when they beat the Canterbury Kings in Hamilton yesterday.

Batting first, the visitors made

190-5 and the hosts at Seddon Park chased that down with four wickets and seven balls to spare after looking unlikely for the first three-quarters of their reply.

Dean Brownlie led the the chase after high-scoring opener Tim Seifert fell lbw first ball to Ed Nuttall.

The Knights skipper made a punishing 86 off 50 balls but fell when caught on the long-off boundary when attempting to strike his fifth six in six deliveries as he turned the match.

English import Chris Jordan

(22 off 10 balls) and Nick Kelly (27 off 13) then completed the job in devastating fashion.

Earlier, Canterbury’s Chad Bowes flung the bat to handy effect to collect 39 off 18 balls and had three other team-mates chip in with scores in the thirties.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Cam Fletcher – one of the top five scorers in the competition this season, at a strike-rate nearing 150 – made 32 off 15 with a sense that Canterbury continue to bat him too low at number six.

Allrounder Anton Devcich continued his excellent season for the Knights, taking 1-24 off his four overs of left-arm spin while leggie Ish Sodhi was a key contributor to keeping the visitors under 200 with

2-29 off his full spell.

The final spot in the play-offs went to the Central Stags.

Central’s 29-run win over the Wellington Firebirds in Wellington secured their finals spot and a semi-final match against the Aces.

The Stags join the Auckland Aces and Northern Knights in the finals with the Knights having home advantage.

With two games being played 500 kilometres apart at the same time, it had looked for much of the afternoon like Canterbury’s Kings would secure the last finals spot.

Chasing 195 for victory, Wellington’s top scorer was Samit Patel, but at a scoring rate that put paid to any chances of securing the win.

Needing nearly 10 an over,

Samit Patel’s 38 came from 39 balls. He was hooking, cutting and pulling hard, but never showed the

kind of invention that was required to find the gaps.

PHOTO: PHOTOSPORT Canterbury Kings opener Michael Pollard plays to the leg side during his knock of 32 against the Northern Knights in Hamilton yesterday.