DUBAI // The Oxigen Masters Champions League was invented as a means of giving cricket supporters a chance to see their heroes from the past back in action, as well as provide a handy pay day for retired players.
An unheralded by-product of it has also been the chance for players to get their own back on previous tormentors.
Revenge is a dish supposedly best served cold. As such, Gareth Batty certainly had the weather for it when he was bowling at Brian Lara at the Dubai International Stadium on Friday night.
Batty, a journeyman off-spinner who is still playing first-class cricket aged 38, played seven Test matches for England and a handful of limited-overs games besides.
His returns were relatively moderate, yet he did send down one of the most famous deliveries in the history of the game.
In Antigua in 2004, he was the bowler when Lara became the first, and so far only, player to score 400 in a Test match.
As the West Indian reclaimed his world-record for the highest score in the international game a decade after setting it the first time, Batty registered two wickets for 185 runs.
Twelve years on, a long-retired Lara, who had just been to Trinidad and back, and had already shown signs of being out of touch anyway, became Batty’s bunny for one night only in Dubai.
Whether revenge was especially sweet is a moot point, given the stakes. After an inopportune scheduling clash with the Pakistan Super League, this tournament is not even the biggest cricket tournament in town at present, let alone a Test match between two of the sport’s oldest rivals.
But, still, picking up Lara for 11 from 20 balls will have been well received by Batty, even if it was played out in front of modestly-peopled stands.
Despite all that, though, it was still Lara who had the last laugh, as his Leo Lions side edged their way past Batty’s Virgo Super Kings. Their reward for the 17-run is a place in tonight’s MCL final against Gemini Arabians.
Thanks to James Franklin’s cool innings of 65, which was studded with three huge sixes, the Lions were able to cobble together 139 for seven from their 20 over allocation.
With Fidel Edwards, Lara’s West Indian compatriot, fired up, the Super Kings top order crumbled in reply.
Neil McKenzie, Humayun Farhat and Azhar Mahmood all went, as the Virgo franchise fell to 18 for three.
Once captain Graeme Smith had fallen for 39, and Jacob Oram was incapacitated by a calf injury, their resistance was essentially over. Batty slogged a vast six into the stands, but it was an inconsequential late flurry as the Super Kings ended well short of their target.
All of which means Brian Lara will face Virender Sehwag as opposing captains for the title.
The tournament’s organisers could barely have scripted it any better.
pradley@thenational.ae
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