HARARE Hurricanes all-rounder Donovan Ferreira said T10 cricket is like a flip of the coin following his team’s scintillating win in the Super Over against Cape Town Samp Army in Tuesday’s second match of the day at the ongoing Zim Cyber City Zim Afro T10 tournament being played under flood flights at Harare Sports Club.
The 25-year-old South African heroics in the last over of Harare Hurricanes’ innings saw him hit five successive sixes off the bowling of Karim Janat as boys from the capital scored 115/6 in their allotted overs. He was unbeaten on 87 from 33 balls, hitting six boundaries and eight sixes.
In a forgettable death bowling experience, Janat took the ball with Hurricanes delicately poised on 85/6. The 24-year-old Afghanistan medium fast bowler opened the last over with a dot ball but followed carnage at its worst as Ferreira freed his arms, hitting three sixes over long-on and one each over deep point and cow corner.
The rest of the Hurricanes’ batsmen found the going tough, with Zimbabwe all-rounder Luke Jongwe coming second best with 10 runs not out.
“I have been working hard trying to assess the conditions trying to play straight as possible on the front foot because I’m used to a bit more bouncing wicket trying to look straight. Luckily it was my night. Some days it goes your way. Some days it doesn’t,” Ferreira said.
“We have just been saying like we need a goldfish mentality, so you forget what happened the previous day because playing back-to-back games, there’s no real time to prepare, there’s no time to change things, so you just have to come out, and if it’s your day, it’s your day. That is the nature of T10. It’s my first tournament, but looking at all the games, it could go any way.
“Last night (Monday), we scored a big score (134/4 against Bulawayo Braves). We lost. As I said, it’s like a flip of a coin; it could go our way, their way, and luckily it went our way again. We know they are only having five teams in the tournament, four go through to the Playoffs, so hopefully, we just keep winning and keep the momentum going the whole time.”
“When I was batting with (Mohammad) Nabi, he just said to me, listen, just keep your shape and just hit as straight as possible, and I mean, like he said, luckily, he bowled five balls in the slope there, so I thought he was going to bowl short obvious to the long boundary, but he mis-executed, and each bowler can do that like Karim, it was my night tonight, and I took advantage of it.”
Cape Town Samp Army had Rahmanullah Gurbaz scoring a half-century, 56 during their chase, Janat (16) and Tadiwanashe Marumani scoring 10 runs to end their innings tied on 115/5.
They needed eight runs off six balls, with Shanthakumaran Sreesanth taking the last over. Sreesanth Janat caught on the first ball of the over, conceded one run to Sean Williams through the covers, was edged for four by Matthew Breetzke via third man, gave a leg bye off Breetzke and ran out Williams, who intended to steal a run at short mid-on and conceded another leg bye off Breetzke. The scores were level at the end of the match requiring the game to go into the one-over eliminator. Janat was not out with five runs, while Breetzke scored one run as Cape Town Samp Army’s top order failed to dispatch Harare Hurricanes bowler Nandre Burger scoring 7/1.
Mohammad Nabi and Ferreira took Harare Hurricanes over the line unbeaten on four and two runs, respectively, finishing on 8/0.
Cape Town Samp Army are still in pole position, tied on eight points with second-placed Durban Qalandars but enjoys a superior net run rate of 1.480 compared to the latter’s 0.464. Harare Hurricanes have now moved to number three with six points, while Joburg Buffaloes and Bulawayo Braves complete the standings with four points each, only separated by net run rate.
