Johannesburg — The Knights qualified for the semi-finals of the Cricket South Africa T20 Challenge on Tuesday after the last round-robin match between the Lions and Rocks was abandoned due of rain.
The Lions needed to beat the Rocks to move into fourth place on the standings, but a thunderstorm wiped out any chances of play. The Knights, who earlier on Tuesday lost to the North West Dragons by 22 runs, claimed the final playoff spot and will face the Titans in the one semi-final on Wednesday while in the other match, the Rocks will play the Dolphins.
The Dragons lifted themselves off the bottom of the table with their second win in this season’s competition, thanks to a half-century from their captain Heino Kuhn and a thunderous hitting display from Duan Jansen - Marco’s twin brother - who made 39 off 15 balls propelled the Dragons from 101/5 after 16 overs, to a final total of 154/6.
Final #CSAT20Challenge standings❗️
Confirmed semifinals 👇@Titans_Cricket vs @KnightsCricket (14:30 CAT)@DolphinsCricket vs @Paarl_Rocks (18:00 CAT)#BePartOfIt #SummerOfCricket pic.twitter.com/J0dLH4ed4T
The Knights will bemoan a sloppy fielding performance, with some of the ground fielding especially amateurish and will know it is an area that needs to be improved against the table-topping Titans on Wednesday. These two teams created a new world record for a T20 match in their round-robin game on Monday, when they shared a match aggregate of 501 runs. That match was also made memorable by the exploits of young Dewald Brevis, who notched up the third highest individual score in a T20 match, by making 162 of 57 balls.
The Knights who batted bravely to get to 230 in their defeat to the Titans, weren’t as good on Tuesday against the Dragons, losing wickets at regular intervals and the failure to build any momentum through their innings proved costly. There was a gutsy 36 off 15 balls from Migael Pretorius, but he was the last man out, when he was caught on long off boundary as the Knights were dismissed for 132.