Mark Boucher, who has been threatening to deliver a substantial innings all season, exploded into action at Sahara Oval St George’s on Wednesday night, smashing 77 off 54 balls to help the Warriors secure their first victory of the season in their Standard Bank Cup limited-overs cricket match against Western Province-Boland (WP-Boland).
The match was interrupted on four occasions by rain, but the Warriors had enough time to register an impressive victory, totalling 251 for seven in 40 overs and then restricting their opponents to 164 for nine in 32 overs.
Under the Duckworth-Lewis system, that gave them victory by 75 runs and a badly needed injection of confidence.
Boucher was joined by the prolific Arno Jacobs, who followed his century last Friday against the Highveld Lions with another superb knock of 94 off 87 deliveries. The pair added 128 for the fourth wicket in just 14 overs to set the Cape side the demanding task of scoring 257 in 40 overs for victory. This was later adjusted due to rain interruptions.
There were moments of alarm for the Warriors when Herschelle Gibbs blitzed their attack, racing to 50 off 29 balls (six fours, three sixes) before a direct hit from Nantie Hayward ran him out.
It was a crucial breakthrough for the home side, and as the pressure built, spinners Pieter Strydom and Mark Bruyns shared four wickets in 11 balls to ruin completely any victory hopes WP-Boland had as they slumped from 115 for three to 120 for seven.
The Warriors’ innings, after they had won the toss, was developing into a frustrating affair following the rain interruptions, the second coming after a promising partnership of 59 between Mark Bruyns (45) and Jacobs had dissolved when the opener was adjudged leg before wicket.
Boucher and Jacobs had added 11 runs when the rain come down, and when they returned, there was little time for the patient accumulation of runs. They spent five overs playing themselves in when Boucher decided there was no further time to waste.
Although Jacobs outscored him, the discarded national wicketkeeper was the catalyst for an extraordinary assault on the visiting bowlers that saw the pair take the score from 125 to 216 in the space of six overs.
Jacobs’s score almost stood still as Boucher hit the bowlers at will, reaching a crescendo when he took 24 runs, including three fours and a six off the first four balls, from an over by the luckless Vernon Philander.
It was thrilling stuff for the home fans, so it’s a pity there were only about 1 500 of them in the ground.
Boucher had hit 10 fours and a six when paceman Quinton Friend got one through his defence and although he was quickly followed by Pieter Strydom and Laden Gamiet, Jacobs managed to keep the momentum going with a final flourish in which he and Johan Botha, who contributed four, hit 30 off two overs.
Both Warriors batting heroes survived chances, the most crucial being Henry Davids’s miss at deep square leg off a towering hit by Jacobs when he was on 43. The ball swirled in the wind and eventually dropped over the fielder’s head to roll over the boundary for four.
Boucher was let off when JP Duminy missed a simple catch at mid-off with the batsman on 60. — Sapa