The Cape Town Cricket Club First XI’s tenuous grip on remaining in the Premier League next season slipped even further after their return match against Victoria at the Chukker Road Sports Complex, having been on the back foot from the very first over of the match – a situation that bar two brief periods remained unchanged all the way until the home side finally hit the winning runs with fully 18 overs to spare. The visitors’ eighth defeat in their last nine matches left them a daunting six points inside the relegation zone, and having only six games left to play, the urgency of somehow needing to find a way to win has never been more urgent.
Having elected to bat first, Cape Town were immediately in trouble upon losing their first wicket to just the second delivery of the game. Hilio de Abreu and Lukanyo Metu, starting to make progress with the bat since being elevated to the number three berth, at least kept the wolves at bay for the next hour though, adding 60 for the second wicket in 15 overs. It was heavy going though on a slow pitch of uncertain bounce, surrounded by a fairly heavy outfield. Helped on his way initially by four overthrows, De Abreu made productive use of nudges and reverse sweeps to keep his tally ticking over, while Metu managed to find the cover boundary four times with some crisp cuts and drives – until driving leg-spinner Warren Ekstraal uppishly to extra cover on the brink of the first drinks breaks to produce the breakthrough for the home side.
Victoria tightened their grip from there, with the first five overs after the interval producing only as many runs. But just as Cape Town seemed to be finding some momentum again thereafter, the off-spin pairing of Jesse Kriel and Jordan Fourie each struck in quick succession to have the visitors four down before the hundred had been raised. Fully half of those runs belonged to De Abreu though, who was made to work hard in reaching his first half-century of the season from 82 balls faced – there were no fewer than 25 singles in his first 54 runs. But having battled his way to 64 from 105 balls to keep Cape Town in the contest at 128-4, he then popped a leading edge back to Ekstraal – and the visitors’ remaining batting collapsed dramatically. For the second time in two matches, a leg-spinner bossed Cape Town in the middle overs, and within ten overs 128-4 had regressed to 141 all out – Ekstraal collecting 4-24 from his ten overs to set Victoria a moderate victory target with enough time to begin their chase even before the scheduled lunch interval.
Still, it wasn’t the easiest of conditions for the batters, and the visitors had five overs before the interval to try and dent the home side’s aspirations with a quick wicket or two. It was not to be though, and Victoria’s opening pair of Adam Constant and Fourie had little difficulty in moving to 20-0 in that time. There was to be no respite after the resumption either, and with the home side reaching 50-0 after 14 overs, matters were looking very comfortable indeed for them.
There was one last hurrah in the Cape Town side, however, as Craig Jeffery’s own legbreaks struck twice in consecutive overs to force an opening. When that was followed by a third wicket two overs later as well, to remove the remaining established batter too, suddenly at 60-3 the door had opened just enough to give Cape Town a thin glimmer of hope through the crack.
Unfortunately for them though, Victoria skipper Marco Wyngaard instead slammed that particular door closed once more – very comprehensively indeed. Suddenly the hitting of sixes was proved possible, and 21 runs were consequently bludgeoned from overs 24 and 25 to regain the initiative for the home side. Wyngaard was just warming up at this point though, as he then put the slog-sweep to brutal use by personally blazing 33 runs in two overs (including four sixes and a four) to post a run-a-ball 50 partnership with Essex import Simon Fernandes, and take himself to a 40-ball half-century. Jeffery returned to break the stand by dismissing Fernandes in the next over, but the horse had already long since bolted – the remaining 15 runs needed took barely two further overs to knock off, and Victoria had secured the bonus point win that allowed them to scoot away from Cape Town on the Premier League points table.
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