ABU DHABI – A scin­til­lat­ing cen­tu­ry from Sher­fane Ruther­ford could not help his North­ern War­riors team from go­ing down by nine wick­ets to UP Nawab, as ac­tion con­tin­ued in the 2024 Abu Dhabi T10 league on Sun­day at the Za­yed Crick­et Sta­di­um in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

Bat­ting first, North­ern War­riors post­ed a com­pet­i­tive to­tal of 142-4 in their 10 overs, thanks to Ruther­ford’s ex­plo­sive in­nings. The West In­dies bat­ter be­came the first play­er in tour­na­ment his­to­ry to score a cen­tu­ry, fin­ish­ing with a daz­zling un­beat­en 103 off 40 balls.

His in­nings in­clud­ed 10 six­es and 7 fours, mak­ing him the new record-hold­er for the high­est in­di­vid­ual score in T10 league his­to­ry, sur­pass­ing Tom Kohler-Cad­more’s pre­vi­ous best of 96 from last sea­son.

The War­riors were in ear­ly trou­ble at 21-2 when Ruther­ford came to the crease, but the dy­nam­ic Guyanese left-han­der took con­trol, guid­ing his side to a chal­leng­ing to­tal.

How­ev­er, the Nawabs were un­de­terred and chased down the 143 with five balls to spare, thanks to West In­di­an play­er of the match An­dre Fletch­er and Afghanistan’s Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz.

Fletch­er took cen­ter stage with a blis­ter­ing un­beat­en 75 off just 27 balls, with his in­nings fea­tur­ing sev­en six­es and four fours. Gur­baz start­ed the on­slaught with 44 off 23 balls with three fours and three six­es

Fletch­er’s de­struc­tive stroke­play reached its peak in the penul­ti­mate over, when he hit three six­es and a four off Saqib Mah­mood, amass­ing 28 runs in the over. Gur­baz hit the win­ning run as Nawabs got to 143 for one in 9.1 overs.

In the sec­ond match of the day, Del­hi Bulls proved too strong for Aj­man Bolts, fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive 35-run vic­to­ry. Bat­ting first, the Bulls post­ed 126-5 in their 10 overs, thanks to an ex­plo­sive 58 off 22 balls from West In­dies T20 skip­per Rov­man Pow­ell.

Tim David al­so played a key role with a quick-fire 29 off 13 balls.

Aj­man Bolts, with West In­dies and Guyanese open­er Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj in their line up, strug­gled from the out­set, los­ing wick­ets at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals to fall to 51-5 in their chase.

De­spite a late surge, they were un­able to re­cov­er, fin­ish­ing their in­nings at 91-6, hand­ing Del­hi Bulls the com­fort­able win.

CMC