Johannesburg — Career-best performances from Grant Roelofsen with the bat and Ottniel Baartman with the ball set up a crushing victory for the Dolphins over the Warriors as the CSA T20 Challenge resumed under sunny skies in Potchefstroom on Tuesday.
The 26-year-old Roelofsen, who had already scored two half-centuries in the competition, produced a stunning assault, hitting shots all around the wicket as he scored 91 to help his side to the highest total in this season’s tournament.
Roelofsen, who was picked up by the MI Cape Town side in the SA 20 competition, hit six fours and five sixes, taking advantage of a bemused Warriors bowling line-up, which struggled to sustain a plan, despite Beyers Swanepoel bowling a maiden in the 10th over.
Roelofsen dominated the power play, even as the Warriors lost two wickets — Keegan Petersen for eight and JJ Smuts for nine — while Tshepang Dithole added a lively 10, leaving the Dolphins 64-3 in the eighth over.
Although Khaya Zondo struggled – at one stage he was six off 16 balls having absorbed that excellent maiden over from Swanepoel — it didn’t matter to the KwaZulu-Natal side as Roelofsen attacked cleverly. While the boundaries lit up the innings, he also ran well between the wickets, and smartly put the bowlers off their lengths by coming down the pitch and moving around in the crease.
Ziyaad Abrahams, one of the Warriors’ top performers, was so put off that he completely missed his lines, bowling five wides in a four-over spell in which he conceded 57 runs.
Roelofsen, now comfortably the competition’s leading run scorer with an aggregate of 234, runs which he has scored with an impressive strike rate of 156, was eventually caught off a low full toss in the 17th over. Jason Smith, with 25 not out off 12 balls, and Zondo with 36 not out off 34 balls, ensured the Dolphins didn’t let Roelofson’s efforts go to waste. Amid the carnage Swanepoel deserves credit as he conceded just 23 runs in four overs.
Eathan Bosch struck twice in the first over to put the Warriors under pressure and by the end of the fourth over they were floundering at 5-3 following the dismissal of skipper Wihan Lubbe.
A 53-run fourth wicket partnership between Jordan Hermann (24 off 23) and Matthew Breetzke (27 off 28) briefly lifted the Eastern Cape team’s spirits, but then came Baartman’s remarkable spell that finished the match.
He delivered a triple-wicket maiden in 12th over that also included a devastating short ball that smashed Swanepoel on the helmet and saw him taken off the field. In his next over he picked up the remaining two wickets, including Swanepoel’s concussion replacement, Rudi Second, to finish with 5-14 from 2.2 overs with those wickets taken in just eight balls.
“You just have to put the ball on a good length and let it do the talking,” Baartman told SuperSport in a post-match interview.
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