Ken Borland

Experienced left-arm spinner Ryan Houbert took three for 22 to lead the Global Gladiators to a 53-run victory over the Nashua Phantoms on the first day of the Northerns Bash at SuperSport Park yesterday, stabbing at the heart of the defending champions’ campaign for a second title in the T20 competition.

Houbert was brought into the attack as early as the third over and removed opener Gerry Pike, to a wonderful, leaping one-handed catch by Ethy Mbhalati at deep mid-on, to immediately undermine the Phantoms’ pursuit of 157 for victory.

The CBC Old Boys 31-year-old then dismissed Jason Brooker (4) and Danie Rossouw  (13) in the 11^th over to leave the Phantoms on 66 for five and well on their way to defeat.

They eventually staggered to 103 all out in 17.2 overs, thanks chiefly to Shaun von Berg scoring 24 not out. Their key batsmen contrived to get themselves out – opener Blake Schraader being run out attempting a crazy second run for 23, Qaasim Adams (10) being bowled by Cobus Pienaar as he swung across the line, and Roelof van der Merwe (8) hoicking Sammy Mofokeng to deep cover.

Medium-pacer Mofokeng was the other bowler to excel for the Gladiators, taking two for 16 in his four overs.

Van der Merwe had earlier produced a superb display of spin bowling at the death to restrict the Gladiators to 156 for five after they had reached 100 for two with seven overs left. The left-arm spinner claimed two for 25 in four overs, while left-arm paceman Rowan Richards grabbed a wicket and was economical, and off-spinner Eden Links also produced a tidy spell of four overs for 27 runs.

A top-class innings of 53 off 51 balls by Ryk Eksteen laid a solid platform for the Gladiators, sharing a second-wicket stand of 54 off 51 deliveries with Lerato Kgoatle (31) and putting on 61 off 43 balls for the third wicket with Farhaan Behardien, who survived a chance on 1 and went on to score 23 off 18.

The second match of the day was also a one-sided affair, with the Tornados beating the Pirates by 51 runs.

Aiden Markram provided the initial momentum up front for the Tornados with his 32 off 19 balls and his fellow Tuks star, Theunis de Bruyn, kept the scoreboard moving with 29 off 20 deliveries.

Titans stars Henry Davids (26) and Mangaliso Mosehle (21) also batted well to take the Tornados to 100 for two after 12 overs, before the innings soured as the Pirates used five spinners to good effect.

Lanky off-spinner Ruben Claassen was the best of the Pirates bowlers as he dismissed Markram, caught behind by Heinrich Klaasen, with his first delivery and conceded just 13 runs in three overs.

David Wiese was also impressive with one for 22 in four overs, but the star of the innings was Graeme van Buuren, who scored 35 not out off 20 balls. He lifted the Tornados from 138 for five at the start of the final over to 162 for five, belting three sixes off wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi.

Fast bowler Gerhard Linde was too much of a handful for the Pirates top-order, removing Jeandre Jumat and Ruan Olivier cheaply, while Corbin Bosch was also impressive with the new ball.

The required run-rate was already over nine when the Pirates’ two best batsman, Klaasen and Wiese, were brought together, and the Tornados bowlers executed their plans well to ensure they could not snatch control away.

Klaasen was dismissed by off-spinner Markram and Wiese was snapped up by Davids, who took two for 10 in three overs to finish the job started by Linde and Bosch.

The Pirates innings eventually closed on 111 for eight.

The Tornados, who boast the strongest batting line-up on paper, now take on the Phantoms, the defending champions who have to win tomorrow to stay in the race.

Scores in brief

Gladiators 156-5 (Lerato Kgoatle 31, Ryk Eksteen 53, Farhaan Behardien 23; Roelof van der Merwe 2-25). Phantoms 103 (Blake Schraader 23, Shaun von Berg 24*; Sammy Mofokeng 2-16, Ryan Houbert 3-22). Gladiators won by 53 runs.

Tornados 162-5 (Henry Davids 26, Aiden Markram 32, Theunis de Bruyn 29, Mangaliso Mosehle 21, Graeme van Buuren 35*). Pirates 111-8 (Shershan Naidoo 33, David Wiese 24; Gerhard Linde 2-13, Henry Davids 2-10). Tornados won by 51 runs.

Club cricketers get a huge opportunity to increase their values in the Titans set-up as the Northerns Bash T20 tournament gets underway at SuperSport Park this morning.

The Northerns Bash involves four corporately-sponsored teams – the Nashua Phantoms, Global Gladiators, TMM Capital Investments Tornados and W.A.D. Holdings Pirates – in a round-robin competition that throws together the current Titans stars, provincial players from the Northerns team and the cream of club cricket in the province.

The attempts to include some of the biggest names in South African T20 cricket have soured slightly with the withdrawal of fast bowler Marchant de Lange and all-rounder Albie Morkel, but there is still the delightful prospect of Titans stars Roelof van der Merwe and Heino Kuhn, Shaun von Berg and Mangaliso Mosehle, and Ethy Mbhalati and David Wiese going head-to-head against each other.

The Phantoms, skippered by Van der Merwe, are the defending champions and the left-arm spinner said although losing De Lange and two other seamers in JP de Villiers and Wayne Scott was a disappointment, he was happy that he would still have an attack capable of winning the second edition of the Northerns Bash.

“Marchant has gone off to play in the Champions League for Kolkata, while JP is on honeymoon and Wayne is injured, but our strength is our three spinners – myself, Shaun von Berg and Eden Links. I think that could be a crucial factor because we know what the pitches are like this time of year,” Van der Merwe told The Pretoria News yesterday.

The experienced former international said the key to repeating their success would be how well they executed their skills both at the start of the innings and at the end.

“We want to repeat the way we started with the bat last time, with Blake Schraader up front just killing the bowling, which gave us good starts and then also be as good again with our death bowling. We want to be clinical in the last five overs when we’re bowling and in the first eight overs when we’re batting,” Van der Merwe said.

The left-handed Schraader, whose only representative cricket has been for the Mpumulanga U19s, is a prime example of a young talent that has a greater chance of reaching his potential thanks to the exposure he gains in the Northerns Bash.

Van der Merwe is not the sort of character to consume too much energy worrying about the opposition, but he did mention the Tornados as having an “unbelievable team on paper” and said even the Pirates, who will rely heavily on Wiese and Heinrich Klaasen in the absence of the injured Morkel, cannot be discounted.

Squads

Phantoms: Roelof van der Merwe, Shaun von Berg, Qaasim Adams, Aya Myoli, Eden Links, Rowan Richards, Jason Brooker, Henk Coetzee, Gerry Pike, Brandon le Roux, Niki Bouwer, Blake Schraader, Stefan Klopper, Danie Rossouw.

Gladiators: Lerato Kgoatle, Cobus Pienaar, Ethy Mbhalati, Bafana Mahlangu, Sean Dickson, Tertius Gouws, Murray Coetzee, Ryan Houbert, Farhaan Behardien, Sean Nowak, Ruan Sadler, Evan Jones, Ryk Eksteen, Sammy Mofokeng.

Tornados: Heino Kuhn, Mangaliso Mosehle, Graeme van Buuren, Henry Davids, Theunis de Bruyn, Junior Dala, Aiden Markram, Corbin Bosch, Thomas Kaber, Jacques Snyman, Gerhard Linde, Sean Phillips, David Mogotlane, Tyler Easton.

Pirates: Heinrich Klaasen, Ruan Olivier, David Wiese, Eldred Hawken, Shershan Naidoo, Tian Koekemoer, Dean Foxcroft, Tom Khoza, Wian van Heerden, Ruben Claassen, Tabraiz Shamsi, Jeandre Jumat, Willem Britz, Schalk van Heerden.

Fixtures

Today: 10am Gladiators v Phantoms; 1.30pm Pirates v Tornados.

Tomorrow: 10am Gladiators v Pirates; 1.30pm Tornados v Phantoms.

Saturday: 10am Phantoms v Pirates; 1.30pm Gladiators v Tornados.

Sunday: 10am 3^rd v 4^th;  1.30pm Final.

Titans CEO Jacques Faul was whistling a happy tune at SuperSport Park yesterday after the success of the inaugural Global Softech Sixes held at the stadium over the weekend.

“We’re very happy, the Franchise Challenge was very competitive and the Africa Challenge was good too. We learnt a lot from the first event, we had fun too and we’re proud of this new tournament. We really got our brand and the stadium out there.

“It’s a massive hospitality opportunity so you don’t really expect the general public to come in their droves, but we were pleasantly surprised by how many people were there on Sunday. Compared to a one-day domestic cup event, the crowd was very good,” Faul told The Pretoria News yesterday.

The concept is now set to be taken to neighbouring countries, with two of the participants in the Africa Challenge, Namibia and Zimbabwe, eager to host the event.

“We will roll it out to Walvis Bay and Harare, their representatives were very excited by the tournament and they want to host something similar next year,” Faul said.

Although the format of the competition is set to change, Faul warned that the actual rules of the Sixes game are unlikely to be fiddled with.

“We’ll maybe go for six franchises and four African nations in two pools in the next event, and play it on Friday, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.

“What we don’t want though is for the event to just be normal cricket. We want something else, which is why we bring the boundaries such a long way in and we have five overs with very small boundaries.

“We’re happy with the format of the games, it’s been trialled for years at the Hong Kong Sixes. People mustn’t look at this event with a traditional cricket perspective,” Faul said.

For eons, cricket has somewhat naively been associated with fair play, but the end of the Franchise Challenge, with the Titans deliberately trying to avoid getting someone out so as to avoid Dolphins captain Morne van Wyk, who had an incredible tournament, returning to the crease after his enforced retirement, showed that there are rules in Sixes that can be exploited in ways that some may consider to be “not cricket”.

But Faul said there was no need to change those rules.

“Different strategies will happen as the players play more of the format; the feedback from the players was very positive,” Faul said.

The South African team proved invincible in the Africa Challenge and Faul suggested they would not play in future events so as to level the playing fields. Logistically, it was also well nigh impossible to pick the national team from performances in the Franchise Challenge, leading to a player like Van Wyk being omitted.

South Africa secured a landslide victory in the inaugural Global Softech Sixes Africa Challenge at SuperSport Park yesterday, going through the two-day tournament unbeaten and hammering Kenya by six wickets with nine balls to spare in the final.

Kenya looked well on their way to posting a competitive total as Alex Obanda (34 retired off 12 balls) and Collins Obuya (35 retired off nine balls) took them to 82 without loss after four overs, but Robbie Frylinck, voted man of the match, bowled a superb final over that cost just eight runs and included two run outs.

South African opener Cameron Delport has enjoyed an outstanding tournament, passing 30 and having to retire in five out of six innings, and he immediately put the hosts on track as he hit seamer Nehemiah Odhiambo’s first three balls for six.

Odhiambo has been one of the best bowlers in the competition, conceding just 54 runs in five matches before the final, but Delport blasted two fours and another six to end the opening over on 32 off six balls.

Delport’s retirement pitted Mangaliso Mosehle against spinners Shem Ngoche and Collins Obuya and the wicketkeeper thrashed five sixes in the next two overs as he retired on 33 off nine deliveries.

Farhaan Behardien (17* off 4) is the coolest of finishers and David Wiese (10* off 2) the longest of hitters and they polished off the remaining runs required with little fuss.

Kenya had qualified for the final thanks to a better run-rate than Zimbabwe and Uganda.

Uganda are clearly a rising force in African cricket – the great Peter Kirsten is their new coach – and they impressed all and sundry by beating Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Namibia over the two days of action in Centurion.

They missed out on the final due to a lame batting performance against Kenya, only managing 75 for five when they were chasing 88.

Kenya themselves had suffered a case of the red mists descending when they lost by 12 runs to Zimbabwe when chasing just 81.

Uganda had beaten Zimbabwe by one run thanks to excellent overs from Jonathan Sebanja and impressive all-rounder Roger Mukasa.

Individual highlights for South Africa were Mosehle hitting five successive sixes off Narendra Patel and captain Behardien’s 40 not out off eight balls against Kenya in their round-robin game and two for seven versus Tanzania; and Chris Morris’s bowling up front against Uganda.

Scores in brief

Namibia 72-2 (JJ Kotze 31*, Gerrie Snyman 22; Narendra Patel 2-10). Kenya 75-2 (Rakep Patel 35*; Gerrie Snyman 1-6). Kenya won by four wickets.

Tanzania 73-2 (Benson Nyaikini 32*, Khalil Rehemtulla 28*). Uganda 75-2 (Roger Mukasa 34*, Jonathan Sebanja 25). Uganda won by four wickets.

South Africa 128-1 (Cameron Delport 36*, Mangaliso Mosehle 33*, Farhaan Behardien 30*). Zimbabwe 99-3 (Malcolm Waller 34*, Stephen Trenchard 22*, Roy Kaia 24; Chris Morris 2-16). South Africa won by 29 runs.

Tanzania 50-3 (Benson Nyaikini 32*; Collins Obuya 1-2, Rakep Patel 1-6). Kenya 51-0 (Alex Obanda 27*). Kenya won by six wickets.

Uganda 81-3 (Roger Mukasa 31*, Deusdedit Muhumuza 24*; Roy Kaia 2-12). Zimbabwe 80-2 (Timycen Maruma 35*, Malcolm Waller 32*). Uganda won by one run.

South Africa 122-1 (Cameron Delport 31*, Farhaan Behardien 31*, David Wiese 34*). Namibia 69-3 (Sarel Burger 32*). South Africa won by 53 runs.

Zimbabwe 80-3 (Roy Kaia 25*; Narendra Patel 1-10). Kenya 68-1 (Collins Obuya 33*; Roy Kaia 1-8). Zimbabwe won by 12 runs.

Uganda 89-2 (Jonathan Sebanja 24, Arnold Otwan 32*; Chris Morris 1-9). South Africa 92-3 (Robbie Frylinck 34*; Jonathan Sebanja 1-10). South Africa won by three wickets.

Tanzania 91-2 (Abhik Patwa 26, Kassim Mussa 33*, Khalil Rehemtulla 31*). Namibia 86-0 (JJ Kotze 33*, Sarel Burger 31*, Gerrie Snyman 21*). Tanzania won by five runs.

South Africa 122-2 (Cameron Delport 32*, Farhaan Behardien 40*, Mangaliso Mosehle 35*). Kenya 102-3 (Alex Obanda 35*, Collins Obuya 33*, Nehemiah Odhiambo 27). South Africa won by 20 runs.

Uganda 82-2 (Roger Mukasa 31*; Jonathan Sebanja 28, Deusdedit Muhumuza 20*; Sarel Burger 2-15). Namibia 80-2 (JJ Kotze 31*, JJ Smit 25*; Roger Mukasa 2-7). Uganda won by two runs.

Tanzania 91-3 (Abhik Patwa 23, Benson Nyaikini 36*; Malcolm Waller 2-15). Zimbabwe 96-2 (Roy Kaia 31*, Malcolm Waller 31*). Zimbabwe won by four wickets.

Kenya 87-1 (Alex Obanda 34*, Rakep Patel 34*; Jonathan Sebanja 1-8). Uganda 75-5 (Roger Mukasa 20; Rakep Patel 2-14). Kenya won by 12 runs.

Tanzania 62-5 (Nasibu Mapunda 23*; David Wiese 2-11, Farhaan Behardien 2-7). South Africa 64-0 (Cameron Delport 34*, Farhaan Behardien 23*). South Africa won by six wickets.

Namibia 92-3 (JJ Smit 32*, Sarel Burger 31*; Malcolm Waller 2-15). Zimbabwe 96-2 (Timycen Maruma 34*, Malcolm Waller 27, Stephen Trenchard 30*; Christi Viljoen 1-10). Zimbabwe won by four wickets.

Kenya 91-2 (Alex Obanda 34*, Collins Obuya 35*). South Africa 92-0 (Cameron Delport 32*, Mangaliso Mosehle 33*). South Africa won by six wickets.