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NSW, Victoria evenly matched for Champions League semi-final clash | New South Wales takes on Victoria in the first semi-final of the Champions League tournament here tonight. Here are some interesting facts related to the two teams.
In the 262 official matches between NSW and Victoria in the past 117 years, the
closest the teams have gone to playing on neutral territory has been a Sheffield
Shield match on the border-town of Albury in 1989 and a one-dayer in Canberra
in 2006. Tonight, they will meet at a stadium more than 10,000 kilometres from
the SCG and MCG. Although the (Victoria) Bushrangers and the (NSW) Blues have
met in two Shield finals since 1990 the stakes - at least financially - have never
been higher than for this clash: the first semi-final of the Champions League
Twenty20. The difference between winning and losing is at least 800,000 US dollars,
or at most two million US dollars, if the winner of the match goes on to win the
final as well. Both NSW and Victoria are splitting the prize money between the
players and the organization, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. NSW's success
so far has been built on their formidable pace attack - notably Brett Lee's extraordinarily
stingy effort to concede only 54 runs in four matches - and their plundering opening
partnership of Phillip Hughes (164 runs) and David Warner (140 runs), who sit
first and fourth respectively on the tournament's list of leading scorers. Victoria
coach Greg Shipperd said the Blues, who still lost only four wickets when beaten
by Trinidad and Tobago, had yet to be challenged properly during the tournament.
''They've played game plan A - everything's worked for them. Our job's to disturb
that and see what they've got up their sleeve ... We've played them about 10 times
in the [tournament] preparation, minus [Brett] Lee and [Nathan] Hauritz basically,
so we've got a really good fix on them as an opponent," Shipperd claimed. NSW
coach Matthew Mott agreed with Shipperd's assertion that virtually everything
had gone to plan for its batting in the tournament. ''That's the aim of every
side'' - and predicted batting would be even more crucial than usual because of
the poor state of the Delhi pitch. It's probably going to be which batting unit
comes out and applies the most pressure on difficult batting conditions that's
probably going to get over the line,'' Mott said Both teams have kept the same
line-ups for all four matches they have played in the tournament. |
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