Cape Town’s rather forgettable 2022/23 T20 campaign finally came to an end, unsurprisingly with yet another defeat – their fourth in five matches, leaving the Plumstead-based outfit in last place in their six-team pool. While it can be argued that in only one of those four defeats were they never in the running to win the game, the results stand nonetheless. Regardless, Cape Town would doubtlessly be quite happy to move on now and focus on the more important 50-over league.
Playing at the Kraaifontein Cricket Club for the first time, their final pool match against Western Province CC was clouded in unknowns to begin with – not just regarding the venue, but even whether or not the match would happen at all. Rain had washed out the earlier morning games, with the result that the qualifying semi-finalists in the pool – Brackenfell and Rondebosch – had thus already been decided by the shared points thus awarded. While this made no difference to Cape Town, who had effectively been out of the running for that particular goal since the first weekend’s round of matches already, it did scupper WPCC’s hopes – who now could not overtake Rondebosch on the points table even with a bonus-point win from this last match. With nothing for either side therefore really to play for, it was touch and go for a while whether they would bother to play at all. However, the covers had protected the playing surface from the earlier rain, and a sense of duty ultimately prevailed.
Playing without their longstanding captain Geoff Dods – the latest entry on an increasingly growing list of injured senior players – Cape Town put their opponents in to bat in the unknown conditions. There appeared little wrong with the pitch though, as the first five overs then realised 52 runs – albeit at the cost of two wickets as well. Half of those runs belonged to opener Givon Christian, who took advantage of surviving a relatively simple chance offered on 35* to complete his second half-century in two matches against Cape Town. With Michal Lord plugging away with his left-arm spin, until the arrival of Nick Barlow Christian’s partners had played but a supporting role to Christian’s centre stage effort, as he bustled his way to the milestone from 42 balls faced. However, Barlow then grabbed some of the spotlight for himself too, clubbing three sixes in as many overs as he added 49 in five overs with Christian.
All of this kept the WPCC run rate ticking along merrily at a very healthy 8½ runs per over consistently throughout the whole innings, with eight sixes and nine fours having been taken from the first 17 overs. However, once Imraan Mohamed, who had last played for the First XI a week short of a year previously, had Christian caught on the boundary for 74 from 54 balls in a very effective second spell of 2/9, opening bowler Darren Rolfe then pulled a little back for Cape Town at the death – claiming three wickets in his final over. Cape Town was thus able to steal WPCC’s finishing flourish, restricting them to 10-5 from their final three overs.
Still, a target of 158 was nothing to sneeze at, and Cape Town’s openers William Hantam and Mathew Goles had to provide a good start for their side to be competitive. Six fours from the first five overs was a good start in that direction, but both were castled inside the first nine overs while going for their shots. Fletcha Middleton threatened to maintain his run of good form thereafter, but even with him at the crease, by the middle overs the much-needed boundaries had worryingly all but dried up – Cape Town managed just five of them during overs six to 16. Then Middleton got out for a run-a-ball 33 to compound the problem, and the Plumstead-based outfit found themselves needing an unlikely 50 runs from the final four overs. Instead, opening bowler Kyle Klein returned to grab three wickets in four balls in over 17, and with Cape Town thus collapsing from 108-3 to 112-7 in the space of eight balls as a result, the match was as good as done.
However, Cape Town keeper Nathan Schultz had other ideas, despite facing a near-impossible ask of 40 wanted from the last two overs. Throwing caution to the winds, he pulled two back-to-back sixes in the penultimate over, and then followed this up with three consecutive fours in the final over. That took him to a maiden First XI fifty from 33 balls faced, but eleven from the final two balls was a bridge too far, and Cape Town slipped to yet another T20 defeat – and the wooden spoon in their group.
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