Kumar Sangakkara – what a player he is. The left-hander usually glides his way to runs, caressing those drives and flicks with ridiculous elan, but on a dream T20 wicket at the Minute Maid Park in Houston, Sanga showed he can time those sixes with equal ease as well, as Warne's Warriors smashed the living daylights out of the legendary bowling lineup of Sachin's Blasters.
The first match did not produce too many runs – from a T20 perspective – with Sachin's Blasters only able to put on 140 runs on the board batting first.
This time, though, Warne's Warriors made up, and then some, for the lack of runs in the first match, as Sangakkara led Warne's Warriors to a ridiculous score of 262/5.
In reply, Sachin's Blasters made an impressive 205 for eight, with Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Swann scoring some runs, but even those runs proved to be nowhere near enough to make a game of it.
The tone was set by the openers Michael Vaughan and Matthew Hayden, as even the likes of Shoaib Akhtar and Glenn McGrath, playing his first game of the Cricket All Stars, went for a few early on.
Once the two openers fell, Sangakkara and Jacques Kallis took over, not exactly rolling back the years, but showing they can mix it pretty well with those big hitters. Sixes would have been the order of the for the fans going into this second T20 of the Cricket All Stars, and the batsmen of Warne's Warriors certainly delivered.
Sangakkara and Kallis put on 91 runs together, before the left-hander added another 69 with Ricky Ponting, who continues to look like he never should have retired.
The result of all that hitting is that Sachin's Blasters now need to answer back. the wicket is pretty good, and if they get going, we could be in for a fantastic game of cricket.
