In the final of the Champions League Twenty20, Trinidad and Tobago gave their followers back home - most of who wore red today in support of their team - a lot to cheer about, as they restricted New South Wales to a modest 159 for 6 on a flat batting track. They will now feel they have one hand on the trophy.

The Blues, who were asked to take first strike, got off to a sedate start, only managing twelve runs off the first couple of overs. But in a bid to break the shackles and push the scoring rate up, David Warner and Phil Hughes - the two openers who have been vital cogs in the Blues' success - played poor strokes and perished without contributing too much on the big night. Hughes (3) played a terrible shot - without too much footwork, he tried to pull across the line only to have his stumps in disarray, while the more dangerous Warner (19) couldn't get past Dave Mohammed at point.

Wickets continued to tumble at regular intervals even after the field restrictions were relaxed. Simon Katich (16), who had hit Dwayne Bravo for two sixes in an over, couldn't clear mid off, while Moises Henriques (4) hit a long hop straight down the throat of deep square leg.

At the halfway stage, the Blues were reduced to 75 for 4. Half their side was back in the dressing room when Ben Rohrer (16) pulled Mohammed's first delivery - a half-tracker - and holed out to the man at midwicket. The winners of the Big Bash - the Australian Twenty20 competition - slipped further when Ravi Rampaul breached past the defences of Daniel Smith (3) and had his off stump pegged back.

Brett Lee joined Steven Smith in the middle with his team reeling at 83 for six in the twelfth over, and the duo bailed their team out of trouble by adding 49 runs over the next six overs. Both batsmen targeted the fifth bowling option of Trinidad and Tobago - Lendl Simmons and Navin Stewart - and scored 32 runs off the three overs bowled by them. 

Smith was dismissed in the eighteenth over when he reverse swept one, but hit it too well and was caught on the sweeper cover fence. He made 33 from 26 balls, aided by two boundaries and a six.

 

Lee, meanwhile, in his first meaningful innings in the competition, played the kind of knock expected of one of the top order batsmen. He hit five sixes - each one of them coming off the middle of the bat, each one clearing the fence by a comfortable distance, and four of them straight down the ground. The 32-year old was dismissed off the last ball of the innings, but not before he had gate-crashed Trinidad and Tobago's party and smashed a career-best 48 (31 balls).

 

Ravi Rampaul was once again the pick of the bowlers; he used the crease and the angles well - bowling from both sides of the wicket, varying his lengths and pace well, to finish with impressive figures of 3 for 20. Bravo, meanwhile, despite getting hit for three sixes, picked up two wickets while conceding 27 runs in his three overs. Sherwin Ganga (1/29), Kieron Pollard (1/27) and Dave Mohammed (1/19) were the other wicket-takers.

Trinidad and Tobago will definitely be the happier of the two teams at the halfway stage since 160 isn't as stiff as some of the other targets they've chased down successfully.

But small targets are known to produce close and tightly fought contests, and this could turn out to be one of them. The last innings of CLT20, 2009, could prove to be the most exciting one.