Champions League T20 - Top 5 impactful innings down the years

5) Ross Taylor & JP Duminy (Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Cape Cobras, Bangalore 2009) –

The best 99 not out you’ll ever see

The combined sides of Western Province and Boland call themselves the Cape Cobras after the dreaded yellow serpents of their homeland, but their bowling attack had their teeth broken by the mighty blade of Ross Taylor on this day.

With Kallis, Uthappa, Dravid and Kohli back in the pavilion at 115 in the 16th over and with no specialist batsman to come after his partner Manish Pandey, Taylor tore into the Cobras’ bowlers with a calculated assault.

The last five overs yielded over 60 runs out of which Pandey made a run-a-ball 10. Future South African superstars Vernon Philander and Rory Kleinveldt were made to look like candy shop salesman doling one sweetmeat after another. Taylor hit 4 sixes on his way to a 24-ball 50 and the total of 180 put up by Bangalore seemed unbreachable…

…till Duminy came calling. His was the best 99 not out you would see in most forms of cricket – a potent act of defiance by a member of the underdogs with their backs to the wall in the lion’s den.

Negotiating the wily swing of Praveen Kumar, Duminy took to the military medium pace of Vinay Kumar and Virat Kohli as the Cobras delivered the fatal kiss of death to the Royal Challengers in a thrilling last over.

The 5 sixes studded knock would go down as one of the most definitive innings in a future version of “Upsets for Dummies”.