The Lobatse/Kanye cricket team beat Gaborone 1 cricket team by 7 wickets this past Sunday to book themselves a place in the Botswana Cricket Association (BCA) Twenty20 (T20) National Tournament semi-finals.
Having suffered a loss that threatened to stop their semifinal bid earlier in the day at the hands of South Region log leaders, Gaborone 3 Cricket team, Lobatse/Kanye responded in style to keep their final dream alive.
Chasing 157 runs set by Gaborone 3, who had won the toss and selected to bat first, the team from Lobatse reached their much needed 158 runs to win the game with 2 balls to spare from their 20 overs.
After suffering an early setback when their opening batsman, Abdel Malek was bowled out in the third over thanks to Gaborone 1 seamer Thatayaone Tshose, Lobatse/Kanye rallied back to seize control of the game courtesy of their captain Rauf Sheikh and his batting partner Azhar Sohel.
The duo put in an imposing 120 run partnership to drag Lobatse/Kanye into the semifinals. With Sohel successfully backing him in the middle of the park with 34 runs from 33 balls, Lobatse/Kanye captain, Sheikh led by example with an impressive 83 runs off the 57 balls he faced.
Despite trailing Gaborone 1 by at least 17 runs at the end of the mandatory power play in the sixth over, largely due to the Gaborone 1 seamers’s good job of containing them, Lobatse/Kanye took to the Gaborone 1 spinners thereafter, hitting them all over the park to take the game away from Gaborone.
While it took the dynamic duo of Sheikh and Sohel a little over 7 overs to reach the partnership’s half century of runs, their next 50 runs to take the partnership past a century of runs was achieved in only 4 overs.
Sheikh and Sohel reached and passed their half century run partnership in style on the 11th over, which also happened to be one of Gaborone 1’s most expensive with 24 runs, which included three 6s and a boundary gained from the over.
The duo would then reach their century run partnership in the 14th over to take Lobatse/Kanye to 115 runs and in need of only 43 runs from the remaining six overs and 9 wickets to win the game.
Sohel and Sheikh then raced to a 120 run partnership by the end of the 16th over before Gaborone 1 bowlers took both out in the 17th and 18th overs.
It was however too little too late as Lobatse/Kanye middle order finished the job with 2 balls and seven wickets to spare.
The result means Lobatse/Kanye, who finished second in the BCA T20 southern region behind Gaborone 3, will now face Francistown Cricket Club who finished first in the north region league log in the semifinals this coming Saturday.
Gaborone 3 on the other hand will come up against North Region league runners’ up Francistown Sports and Recreation Cricket (FRSC) Club in another semifinal.
The games will be played at 14:00 hours and 18:00 hours respectively, with the winners expected to face off in the final the following day at 09:00 hours in the morning.
