Livingstone carnage powers Abu Dhabi Knight Riders to winning start

Twelve days ahead of the IPL auction, Liam Livingstone smashed an unbeaten 82 off 38 balls - with eight sixes - that powered Abu Dhabi Knight Riders to a commanding 39-run win over Sharjah Warriorz to kick off their ILT20 season with aplomb. The visitors rode on Livingstone's knock as well as contributions from Alex Hales (32 off 19), Alishan Sharafu (34 off 23) and Sherfane Rutherford (45 off 27) to pile on 233/4. Tim David carried his form from the Abu Dhabi T10 to smash a 24-ball 60 that included seven sixes but he still finished on the losing side as the Warriorz fell short by 39 runs

Knight Riders flew off the blocks with Hales and Sharafu, who took them to 58/1 in the PowerPlay. Adil Rashid pulled back a touch by dismissing the two in the eighth and 10th over but that brought Livingstone and Rutherford together. They smashed 95 together off just 49 deliveries. From the 11th over to the 15th, the pair hit at least one six in each of them as the Knight Riders' total soared. Rashid and Tim Southee bowled two fantastic overs in the death conceding six each but Livingstone compensated for that in the 20th - when he smashed five sixes off a 33-run over from Dwaine Pretorius.

Sharjah's riposte was weak to begin with, as Johnson Charles, Tom Abell and Tom Kohler-Cadmore were all dismissed by the seventh over with only 56 rusn to show for. David took charge of the chase from here, launching sixes at will. He hit three successive ones off Piyush Chawla enroute to a 21-ball half-century.

But batters around him kept departing to deny any momentum to the chase. Sikandar Raza and Dinesh Karthik fell for single-digit scores in the 11th and 12th over, before David himself holed out in the 13th.Pretorius tried to give back a little of what he received with a 20-ball 39 and Rashid hit two sixes in his 11-ball 25 too but it wasn't enough. Left-arm pacer Ajay Kumar, who snuffed out David, finished with impressive figures of 1-22 in a game where 427 runs were scored.

Brief Scores:Abu Dhabi Knight Riders 233/4 in 20 overs (Liam Livingstone 82*, Sherfane Rutherford 45, Adil Rashid 2-31, Saurabh Netravalkar 1-33) beat Sharjah Warriorz 194/9 in 20 overs (Tim David 60, Dwayne Pretorius 39, George Garton 2-24, Olly Stone 2-37, Andre Russell 2-48, Ajay Kumar 1-22) by 39 runs