Despite the dominant win Lions captain Bjorn Fortuin claimed they weren’t the completed package deal and nonetheless had work to do forward of the final.
Lions spinner Nqaba Peter and Proteas batter Rassie van der Dussen have been the star performers as they helped the hosts power to a thumping eight wicket win over the Titans in their CSA T20 Challenge semifinal on the Wanderers on Wednesday night time.
The Lions received the toss and selected to bowl, with 21-year-old Peter selecting up sensible figures of 4/16 in his 4 overs, whereas Codi Yusuf additionally impressed with 2/25, as they restricted the Titans to a under par 131/9 in their 18 overs.
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The recreation had been lowered by two overs a facet in the seventh over of the Titans innings, after a floodlight failure delayed the sport for round half-hour.
Maiden half century
The Titans have been grateful to 22-year-old batter Jack Lees, in simply his sixth senior T20 match, as he struck a glowing maiden half century to give his facet one thing to bowl at.
Lees cracked 10 fours and a six in his unbeaten 64 off 43 balls, whereas the one different Titans batter to attain double figures was Rivaldo Moonsamy with him hitting 24.
However the overall proved to be no the place close to sufficient as Van Der Dussen took centre stage, crunching eight fours and a six in his unbeaten 73 off 45, to lead the Lions dwelling with 20 balls to spare.
He shared in a commanding 85-run second wicket partnership with Ryan Rickelton, 36 off 28 (3×6), and an unbeaten 46-run stand with fellow Protea Temba Bavuma to ease them over the road.
Despite the dominant win Lions captain Bjorn Fortuin claimed they weren’t the completed package deal and nonetheless had work to do forward of the final on Sunday, which they are going to hosts in opposition to both the Dolphins or Warriors as they battle out the second semi on Thursday night time.
Touch up
“I can’t complain. There are still a few aspects that we need to touch up on before the final, with a couple of the bowlers, myself included. But I am very happy with the way we went with the bat tonight and hopefully we can continue that in the final,” mentioned Fortuin.
“We have had guys rise up at totally different occasions of the competitors. Earlier on our seamers have been doing properly and now we’ve got younger Nqaba doing fairly nicely. So hopefully we will put collectively the whole package deal in the final.
“We don’t want to take that game for granted. Anything can happen in T20 cricket. So we will look to take it ball by ball and hopefully things will go our way.”
Titans captain Neil Brand was disenchanted with the end result however admitted that his facet can take loads out of their efforts in the competitors as they construct in direction of subsequent season.
“I think we were about 40 or 50 runs short. With the dew coming in this evening we had to take some risks with the bat, but we kept losing wickets in clumps and faced too many dot balls,” mentioned Brand.
“Credit to the way in which the Lions guys bowled and their spinners. I believed they bowled rather well. Rassie and Ricks (Rickelton) then took the sting out of the chase.
“There are definitely positives to take out of the season. We had a very young and inexperienced side, with a lot of the players playing in their first semifinal. So there is an exciting future for us and we can keep on rebuilding.”
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