ABU DHABI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates – Nicholas Pooran and An­dre Rus­sell both starred as Dec­can Glad­i­a­tors stormed to a ten-wick­et vic­to­ry over Chen­nai Braves on Sun­day, to be of three teams chal­leng­ing for the top stop in the Abu Dhabi T10 League.

In pur­suit of a mea­gre 84 at the Za­yed Crick­et Sta­di­um, Glad­i­a­tors reached their tar­get with 23 balls to spare, the left-hand­ed Pooran carv­ing out a 19-ball un­beat­en 35 with three fours and three six­es.

His part­ner Tom Kohler-Cad­more top-scored with 44 not out off 19 balls while count­ing five fours and three six­es.

Ear­li­er, Rus­sell fin­ished with three for 12 from his two overs of medi­um pace, to help lim­it Braves to 83 for eight off their ten overs.

Glad­i­a­tors are one of the three teams at the top of the stand­ings on six points.

In the sec­ond game of the triple-head­er at the venue, for­mer West In­dies Twen­ty20 cap­tain Car­los Brath­waite picked up two for 26 for two overs of medi­um pace as Bangla Tigers de­fend­ed 137 to win by two runs.

Open­er Hazrat­ul­lah Za­zai struck 57 from 20 balls in 54-run, open­ing stand with Ja­maican Ken­nar Lewis (22) but Brath­waite struck twice in the eighth over be­fore left-arm pac­er Do­minic Drakes held his nerve in a tense last over with 17 runs re­quired.

In the day’s open­ing con­test, for­mer Test cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er starred with the ball but flopped with the bat as his Samp Army beat Del­hi Bulls by four wick­ets.

Seam­er Hold­er claimed three for 15 to help re­strict Bulls to 95 for eight, Rov­man Pow­ell (19), John­son Charles (9) and Dwayne Bra­vo (0) all fail­ing to get among the runs.

In re­ply, Samp Army got home with two balls to spare thanks to Faf du Plessis’s 17-ball 30 and Na­jibul­lah Zad­ran’s 12-ball 25 not out but Hold­er per­ished for a first-ball ‘duck’.

Bulls and Samp Army are the oth­er two teams at the top of the stand­ings.

CMC