Reverting to the 50-over format once more, Cape Town retained the momentum of their first win of the new season the previous weekend to completely dominate Brackenfell from start to finish at the Boon Wallace Oval, bagging a bonus-point win with an abundance of time, wickets and overs to spare. As a result Cape Town got their Premier League campaign underway nicely, while also dishing out a measure of sweet revenge for the drubbing that they had suffered at the hands of their guests in the T20 competition just the weekend before.
Matters had seemed rather less promising pre-match though, when a strong visiting batting line-up on paper additionally secured the advantage of batting first on a pitch that traditionally only gets lower and slower as the day progresses. However, tradition would play no role on this day, as the visiting batters instead encountered a pitch with pace and bounce to burn. Opening bowler Brendan Young revelled in the conditions, bending the ball to his will from the very first over of the match – which also brought the first wicket. Charging in with clinical vigour, Young devastated the Brackenfell top order, returning figures of 6-2-11-4 at one point as the visitors were powerless to escape his stern examination and collapsed to 25-4 inside the first hour.
No sooner had Young been given a rest though, than Nicholas Scott took up the cudgels from the other end – striking in each of his first two overs to reduce Brackenfell to 57-7, and effectively all but seal the match’s outcome just 17 overs into proceedings. Still, it wasn’t completely one-way traffic, as Stefan Joubert resisted sufficiently to strike four fours – and rallied enough support from the tail to drag the visitors to a three-digit total at least. A generous helping of wides from the home team seamers also played no small role in that achievement though, and despite Young being unable to complete his five-for when brought back early for a second spell, Scott kept chipping away at the batting and ultimately just missed out on achieving that honour himself. Thus Brackenfell were bundled out with virtually 20 overs left unused, a full hour before the scheduled lunch break was due.
Thus required to begin their run chase immediately, Cape Town’s opening pair of William Hantam and Mathew Goles came out in belligerent mood. The visiting bowlers were consequently dispatched to all corners of the park as the pair between them carted 13 boundaries off the first eight overs, as the home side rocketed passed 50. Hantam finally fell 15 minutes before the break, having struck nine of those fours in his 31-ball onslaught, but when lunch was finally taken the home side needed just 40 more to win from 38 available overs.
Proceedings once play resumed were far calmer than they had been before the break, as matters progressed smoothly towards an inevitable outcome. Goles was happy to take the ones and twos on offer – barring a spurt in which he struck a four and six off consecutive balls – and finally a simple push into the covers duly completed Cape Town’s comprehensive victory with almost 30 overs to spare.
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