Klaasen carries Titans to T20 Challenge victory over Dragons

Heinrich Klaasen continued to display the form of old that first made him a Protea back in 2018 as he led the Northerns Titans to a comfortable 33-run win over the North-West Dragons in their CSA T20 Challenge match at St George’s Park on Tuesday.

Having been sent in to bat, Northerns were given a fine start by Quinton de Kock (34 off 17) and Theunis de Bruyn (25 off 19), but they still needed a good finish as they slipped to 78/4 inside the 10th over.

Klaasen responded with a hard-hit 54 not out off 41 balls, his second half-century of the tournament, taking him to the fourth-most runs (226) at an average of 75.33.

With Donovan Ferreira scoring 37 not out off 35 balls, Northerns posted a highly-competitive 167/4.

Left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy was outstanding with the ball for North-West with 2/14 in his four overs, while Dwaine Pretorius took 1/26.

Veteran left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso then bowled the Titans to victory as his 2/13 in four overs played the major role in North-West limping to 134/7.

All the Northerns bowlers were tight, though, with Aya Gqamane and Dewald Brevis also both picking up a brace of wickets.

In the afternoon game, the Boland Rocks were left hiding their heads in shame as they failed to chase down a target of 165 against the Free State Knights, despite losing only two wickets.

Free State won a thriller by three runs thanks to an outstanding final over of yorkers by Alfred Mothoa (4-0-33-0), who had 11 runs to defend.

Boland always looked in control with Janneman Malan scoring 33 off 25, Pieter Malan batting through for 60* off 51, Clyde Fortuin dashing to 46 off 31 and Christiaan Jonker adding 17* off 13, but in the end it was an ill-judged chase.

Spinner Gregory Mahlokoana (4-0-24-1) and Nealan van Heerden (4-0-30-0) also bowled tightly to leave the Rocks with too big of a mountain to climb in the end.

Free State posted 164/6 thanks to a solid batting display led by Chris Klijnhans (52 off 47) and Raynard van Tonder (38 off 33), while seamer Ziyaad Abrahams took 5/34, the best figures in the tournament so far.

Western Province will top the log if they beat the KZN Dolphins, who are also still in contention to join Northerns and Boland in the semi-finals, in Wednesday’s last day of round-robin matches. If KZN lose, then the winners of the Eastern Province Warriors versus North-West game will be the final qualifiers.