Bowlers rescue TSK after batting wobble

Texas Super Kings' mini-wobble with the bat in the first innings didn't come back to haunt them as their bowlers - led expertly by medium-pacer Amshi de Silva - downed San Francisco Unicorns to defend their middling total of 161/8 in the MLC.

Faf du Plessis (40 off 24) at the top and Donovan Ferreira (45 off 28) made a telling impact but the rest of TSK's batting largely folded. Placed on 96/5 at one point, they limped to 161/8 to give their bowlers a total to work with, and they took over from there, delivering an all-round performance that caught the Unicorns 22 runs short.

TSK got the sort of start they've been looking for. Both their openers got going simultaneously for the first time this season as Saiteja Mukkamalla added a swift 72-run stand that took the team past the Powerplay without the loss of a wicket. Du Plessis did the majority of the scoring in the stand, and did it quick, while Mukkamalla slowly caught up. A six from the latter off Matthew Short took the team past 50 in the seventh over, and du Plessis looked in the mood to blaze away once more. But his carefree batting was cut short in the eighth over when Finn Allen took an incredible diving catch at long-off.

TSK then lost Rilee Rossouw, Milind Kumar and Shubham Ranjane for single-digit scores while Mukkamalla's essay too tapered off before ending on 36 off 30. TSK were reduced to 96/5 when Ferreira arrived to stitch the innings back together. He added 40 off 27 with Wiaan Mulder, who scored a grand total of four runs in this alliance before being dismissed by Brody Couch. That partnership, however was key in pushing TSK well past the 100-run mark. Ferreira tonked four sixes and a couple of fours in his quick knock of 45, falling just after taking the team past 150 runs.

Heading into the break, SFU had reason to believe there was two points for the taking but they lost their way in the Powerplay itself. Amshi was at the top of the early destruction, dismissing both openers Allen and Lhuan-dre Pretorius and then taking out Connor Esterhuizen, pushing the chasers down to 37/3 in the fifth over. Sanjay Krishnamurthi and Short's attempts to arrest the slide lasted only until just after the Powerplay as the former was run out in the seventh over. Short tried to throw his bat around, as did Hassan Khan but both soon perished and SFU were six down before the halfway stage.

Couch tried to keep the chase going even from that position by putting on short stands with Hammad Azam and Peter Siddle, but that was insufficient in the end. SFU arrived at 104/7 in 14 overs, needing 58 off 36 with Couch and Hammad in the middle. Amshi returned to bowl his final over and gave a six and four leg-byes, before Hammad played one onto his stumps. SFU were down to 115/8 and Amshi walked away with figures of 4-28. Couch wasn't done yet, though. He welcomed Adam Milne in the 16th over with a six, while Siddle found a way to hit a four too, picking 11 runs from the over. With 36 needed off 24, Couch hit Hardus Viljoen for a six but only three more runs were possible in the rest of the over. Milne then brought down the curtains on SFU's late efforts with a well-disguised cutter to dismiss Couch. Three deliveries later, he bowled another off-cutter that came with Ghulam Mudassar's name on it, and wrapped up TSK's victory.

Brief Scores:Texas Super Kings 161/8 in 20 overs (Donovan Ferreira 45, Faf du Plessis 40; Ghulam Mudassar 2-30, Brody Couch 2-42) beat San Francisco Unicorns 139 in 17.4 overs (Matthew Short 28; Amshi de Silva 4-28, Abhimanyu Lamba 2-22, Adam Milne 2-29) by 22 runs