ABU DHABI – The Abu Dhabi Knight Rid­ers pro­duced a nail-bit­ing dis­play of pow­er-hit­ting and nerve to over­come the Gulf Gi­ants by four wick­ets at the Za­yed Crick­et Sta­di­um in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates on Thurs­day, vault­ing from sixth to fourth in the ILT20 points ta­ble.

Chas­ing a com­pet­i­tive 166, the Knight Rid­ers’ vic­to­ry was built on a blis­ter­ing open­ing foun­da­tion and fin­ished with trade­mark late fire­works.

Eng­lish duo Phil Salt, with 35 off 24 and Alex Hales, 46 off 39, launched the chase with a con­fi­dent 61-run open­ing stand in 44 balls, Salt no­tably rac­ing to 8,000 T20 ca­reer runs in the process.

De­spite a mid­dle-overs fight­back from the Gi­ants, led by Tabraiz Sham­si’s im­pres­sive 3-23, the Knight Rid­ers al­ways kept pace.

Hales an­chored the in­nings, while West In­di­an Sher­fane Ruther­ford, with 30 off 22, pro­vid­ed cru­cial ac­cel­er­a­tion, smash­ing Moeen Ali for 16 runs in the 14th over.

The game swung again when Chris Wood dis­missed Hales at 125-3, and Sham­si’s re­moval of Al­is­han Shara­fu soon af­ter left the out­come in the bal­ance.

Need­ing 39 from the fi­nal five overs, An­dre Rus­sell, with an­oth­er swash­buck­ling in­nings of 21 off 13, emerged as the ice-cool fin­ish­er.

Af­ter a tense pe­ri­od, he broke the shack­les with a mon­strous six off Matthew Forde in the 18th over and fit­ting­ly sealed the win, launch­ing Chris Wood over the ropes with four balls to spare.

Ear­li­er, the Gi­ants’ in­nings were de­fined by a lone hand from Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz. The Afghan wick­et­keep­er-bat­ter played a sub­lime knock of 72 from just 45 balls (in­clud­ing four fours and five six­es), sin­gle-hand­ed­ly pro­pelling his side to a strong po­si­tion.

His dis­missal, cour­tesy of a spec­tac­u­lar div­ing catch by Al­is­han Shara­fu off Ajay Ku­mar, trig­gered a dra­mat­ic col­lapse. Vet­er­an leg-spin­ner Piyush Chawla was the chief de­stroy­er, weav­ing his mag­ic to claim 4-27, in­clud­ing two wick­ets in one over as the Gi­ants slumped from 131-4 to 135-6.

Their fi­nal to­tal of 165-7 proved in­suf­fi­cient on a night where the Knight Rid­ers’ fire­pow­er ul­ti­mate­ly pre­vailed.

CMC