A Ravinderpal Singh-inspired Canada saw off Singapore in the highest scoring game of the day.
Canada 165 for 4 (Singh 79*, Kumar 44, Baskaran 2-27) beat Singapore 164 for 5 (Chandramohan 51, Zafar 1-28) by six wickets @ICC Academy 2, Dubai.
Singapore were fresh from their victory against Canada in the ICC Challenge League A, where they finished top on equal points. Their confidence was high as they had even defeated Zimbabwe in the Singapore Tri- Nation T20I Series and Nepal in the ICC Asia Finals.
Both these sides have been in excellent form leading up to the tournament and are both tipped as dark horses to do well in their respective groups. That was evident here in a quality warm-up game.
Batting first, Singapore lost two early wickets but recovered very well led by a half century by Surendan Chandramohan (51 off 38 balls, 2 sixes) assisted by fine knocks from Aritra Dutta (34 off 28) and Manpreet Singh (36 off 19, 3 sixes) to post a competitive 164 off their 20 overs.
Reversing their recent 50-over result in Malaysia, Canada chased the target down easily with two overs to spare was down to an explosive knock by the world-record holding Ravinderpal Singh (the first cricketer ever to score a T20I century on debut, a feat he accomplished in the Americas qualifier) who blasted 79 off 38 balls including 7 sixes, aided and abetted by 44 off 38 balls by Nitish Kumar.
Group B bowling attacks are going to have to come up with a way of containing Singh, as in this kind of form as he has the potential to cause all heaps of trouble in the coming weeks.
Singapore will be aiming to come back strong in their next warm- up match versus Jersey on Tuesday, 15th October 2019.
