The predominant features of Sialkot Stallions’ innings were batsmen playing and missing on a bouncy pitch and an abundance of dot balls. Their attempts at counter-attacking Auckland Aces were largely short-lived; the Sialkot batsmen cleared the Wanderers’ boundaries ten times, and hit five fours as well, but still achieved a total that was below par. Shoaib Malik decided to bat on a used pitch at Wanderers as Sialkot Stallions began their qualifying campaign in the Champions League T20. Gareth Hopkins, the Auckland Aces captain, said his team wanted to bowl first. The three players Sialkot left out of their XI were Faisal Naved, Mohammad Ayub and Umaid Asif. They are also without offspinner Abdur Rehman, who had to be withdrawn from the squad because of a drugs ban.
Auckland have spent a couple of weeks in South Africa, prepping for this tournament and they played four practice games during that time. The four players they left out were Chris Martin, Bradley Cachopa, Mitchell McClenaghan and Bruce Martin.
