A-class performance from Ackerman and Alexander takes North West top

It was the day of the two A’s for the North West Dragons in their second Africa T20 Cup Pool B match today (2 September) against the defending champions, Eastern Province with a brilliant 41 run victory.

It was an A-class performance from Marques Ackerman with the bat as he hit 74 (50) with Craig Alexander backing it up with ball taking 4/11 from 3.1 overs.

Ackerman showed why he was recently selected for the Global League T20 with some audacious shots and an ability to find the gap regularly. Without his knock, North West would have been in even more trouble as they found themselves at 98/5 at one stage. Janneman Malan was the second highest run scorer with 16, that really puts Ackerman’s contribution in perspective.

In the end the North West Dragons made 143/8 from their 20 overs with Brad Dolley (2/14) and Anrich Nortje (2/22) doing the most damage.

Alexander made his statement with his first ball removing the dangerous David White, caught behind for a golden duck.

He then ended a brilliant first over on a high when he uprooted Edward Moore’s off stump to send him packing for a duck too.

It went from bad to worse for EP as they lost Clyde Fortuin next for another duck, this time his namesake Bjorn Fortuin getting the scalp for North West. At 2/3 EP were always fighting an uphill battle and only Matthew Breetzke with 30 (26) and Solo Nqweni with 37 (38) showed fight in a losing cause. Johannes Diseko also claimed 3/25 in the middle overs that contributed to EP only posting 102 all out. It was a superb bowling performance from the home side to keep them in the tournament.

North West are now on top of the table with 5 points and a net run rate of 0.950 just ahead of Gauteng on 0.588 who are also on 5 points.

These two sides now face each other tomorrow in a do or die match at 13:00 at Senwes Park with the winner topping the group and progressing to the semi-final stage.