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Nelson Mandela Bay Giants 127 for 5 (Duckett 75, Hendricks 2-5) beat Jozi Stars 124 for 7 (Vilas 38*, Gayle 23, Smuts 3-20) by seven wickets
He isn’t a recognised T20 name worldwide yet, but Ben Duckett showed he has the ingredients to become one. A fine exhibition of back foot play that yielded runs against pace and fleet-footedness that brought the rewards against spin delivered a 27-ball half-century as Nelson Mandela Bay Giants cruised to five-wicket win over Jozi Stars on Saturday.
Duckett made a 45-ball 75, before falling in the 16th over with Giants needing 16 off 33 balls. Victory on or before 16 overs would’ve fetched them a bonus point, but the middle order sputtered past the target to eventually settle for a win with 12 balls to spare. Only time will tell if a missed opportunity to pocket the extra point would haunt them later in the tournament.
Stars, meanwhile, paid the price for injudicious shot selection that had them huff and puff to 124 for 7. This was comfortably 30 below par on a surface where JJ Smuts, the left-arm spinner, was Ravindra Jadeja-esque with his control and guile.
This fetched him 3 for 20 to leave a gaping hole in the middle order, one they couldn’t recover from. Among their takeaways from the contest was the performance of left-arm swing bowler Beuran Hendricks, who ran in hard and troubled the openers during the course of an intense spell with the new ball. He finished with figures of 3-1-5-2.
Duckett kicked in the adrenaline rush by taking on the experienced Dan Christian in the fourth over. A sequence of 4,4,6 showed his wide range and his confidence in executive brave strokes. The first boundary was a front-foot pull, the next was a scoop over short fine. The best of the lot was the short-arm jab for six over deep midwicket.
Then later of Eddie Leie, the legspinner, he brought out the switch hit to bludgeon his way to a peerless knock that only got easier as the game progressed. With no pressure applied by Stars, it increasingly seemed like an extended net session for Duckett despite Giants losing two more wickets than they would’ve liked. When victory was sealed, Duckett had the company of Rusi Second, the wicketkeeper who earlier in the season broke into South Africa’s A squad during the tour of India.
While Duckett and Smuts deservingly walk away with the top honours, the scorecard wouldn’t entirely reveal the efforts of Junior Dala. In the context of the game, his 1 for 19 off four overs may have not been too significant, but in hustling Chris Gayle for sheer pace with the new ball, he provided the early sparks to a contest that was brewing up quite nicely.
Gayle started slowly – like he usually does in T20s – and was reprieved when Ryan McLaren put down a dolly at cover point in the third over. For a while, it seemed as if they would’ve been made to pay as he blasted 6,4,4 in the next over bowled by McLaren, but was eventually snuffed out in the same over by a yorker that hit him flush on the toe to trap him lbw.
The only semblance of resistance from there on came courtesy captain Dane Vilas, who shut out the big shots and relied on his industry to pinch runs on the face of some disciplined bowling. He was briefly complemented by Rassie van der Dussen, who made an attractive 19-ball 23.
Amid the bowling stifle, left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso provided the moment of the match when he came sprinting at least 25 yards in from the deep cover boundary before putting out a full-stretch dive forward to complete a sensational catch. Play was held up for five minutes as the third umpire looked at multiple replays before confirming the soft-signal of out stood. With the ball too, Phangiso was tidy, taking 1 for 20 off his four.
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