Century stand trumps Gayle, De Kock as Knights reach T20 final

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

NEITHER Chris Gayle nor Quinton de Kock could stop the Knights from reaching the franchise T20 final against the Cobras at Newlands on Friday.

Instead, a polished century stand by Reeza Hendricks and Rilee Rossouw downed the Lions in the semi-final at the Wanderers on Sunday.

Modern master blaster Gayle and budding bazooka De Kock scored just 15 and one respectively in the Lions’ mediocre total of 148/5. The Knights won by eight wickets with 13 balls to spare.

Temba Bavuma clipped a stylish 36 off 26 balls with six fours - most of them crisp, proper cricket strokes - while Neil McKenzie’s 30, Jean Symes’ 26 not out and Chris Morris’ unbeaten 12, which flew off six balls, all helped give the home side something to bowl at.

But they needed either Gayle or De Kock to bat well into the innings, and both were gone after a mere 20 balls had been bowled by way of catches at midwicket and in the covers off the bowling of Malusi Siboto and Andre Russell.

Consequently, and given the superb batting conditions, the Lions did not score nearly enough runs to stay competitive - a testament to the Knights’ steely bowling and fielding performance.

The epitome of that effort was the bowling of Dillon du Preez, the only member of the visitors’ attack who went wicketless. But he accomplished the almost unheard of feat in this format by sending down a maiden to Gayle. That was easily as impressive as keeping the runs down to 20 in his four overs.

The Knights lost Gerhardt Abrahams in the fifth over having knocked off 29 runs of their target, but they needed only one decent partnership to get over the hump.

That stand cracked off the bats of Hendricks and Rossouw, who shared 115 runs in their 13 overs at the crease together - a runrate of 8.84.

Hendricks drilled his 74 not out off 53 balls. Rossouw faced 42 deliveries for his meaty 58. They hit 13 fours and two sixes between them - 51 of their runs were actually run - in a stand of bustling industriousness and intelligent running.

By the time they were parted, by Lonwabo Tsotsobe in the 18th over, the Knights needed just five more runs off 14 balls.

The only Lions bowler who went for less than a run a ball was Kagiso Rabada, who took 1/13 off three overs.

Sunday’s result capped a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the Lions, who reeled off victories in their first five games in the competition.