JOHANNESBURG - A significant part of the Knights’ success in this season’s Sunfoil Series was down to team culture, and the players being motivated to leave a legacy.
What once looked like a fractured team, has this season been a galvanised unit and when it mattered in the last round of the competition, they produced their best game. The Knights beat the Highveld Lions by an innings and 121 runs at the Wanderers on Saturday morning to claim the most desired trophy in domestic cricket and the R2-million prize money that goes with it.
Knights coach Nicky Boje, who played 43 Tests and 115 ODIs for South Africa, described it as one of the highlights of his career. The Knights overtook the defending champions the Titans in the final weekend of the competition, having trailed by 2.38 points ahead of the last round of matches.
A dominant batting display on the first day in which they charged to 443, batting at well over four runs an over, allowed them to collect a stunning 6.70 batting bonus points. Then their potent seam bowling unit, led by the top wicket-taker in the competition Duanne Olivier, blitzed through the Lions batting line-up dismissing the home team for 87 in just 36 overs.
“Theunis (de Bruyn) was saying if this game was on TV, with the bowling line-up we had and the way we batted in the first innings people would want to come and watch, because that was serious cricket,” Boje mused.
Even though the margin of their triumph in the competition was narrow, there was consensus certainly from the Lions, that the Knights were indeed the best side this season. Boje admitted that when he came into the dressing-room in the middle of last season, he needed to make a few changes.
“As a new coach, when you take over it’s difficult to get players to trust in what you’re trying to get across,” he said. “I had to make a couple of changes, get some new guys in, Theunis played a massive role as captain, Marchant (de Lange) with the new ball with Duanne Olivier ... having the international experience of Dave Miller was massive.”
As has become apparent with championship sides in recent seasons, it is the quality of the bowling unit that underscores the best teams and in that regard the Knights were streets ahead of the rest of the franchises. Olivier topped the wicket-taking charts with 52 and De Lange was second on 34. Shadley van Schalkwyk, the third part of the seam bowling unit, claimed 29 wickets and all three missed just two games in the competition this season.
“The whole attack bowled as a unit,” said De Bruyn. “Duanne claimed (52) wickets, but add Shadley into that attack, and (Mbulelo) Budaza came through when he had to play ... what worked well was that it was relentless from both sides.
“When this bowling unit was switched on they dominated batting units in South Africa. The way they’ve bowled and respected each other and not being selfish about who wants the most wickets, that was impressive.”
The Knights’ batsmen weren’t bad either, scoring a total nine hundreds during the competition, led by wicketkeeper Rudi Second who scored three, two of which came in the last four games.
“We set ourselves quite high standards. There were lot of good performances individually ... how many hundreds we scored, how many ‘five-fers’, that kind of stuff all adds up,” said Boje.
De Bruyn, who moved to Bloemfontein from the Titans at the end of last season, was the top run scorer for the Knights with an total of 751 runs that included two centuries.
For Boje, what comes next for the Knights is equally as important as what they achieved in winning the four-day competition. “It’s a building phase ... the Knights were not really successful in winning trophies in the last couple of years. We want to leave a legacy in the central franchise, if young guys come in there are certain rules and set things for the Knights, how to be a Knight, that kind of thing," he said.
“We are still putting that kind of stuff in place it’s still a process for us in the next couple of years, and we want to keep building. This win is just the first step and hopefully we can continue."