Reeza Hendricks joins elite class with a double
Two centuries in two days seal it for Jozi Stars
How was your weekend? Not bad‚ we hope‚ if you’re most people. But if you’re Reeza Hendricks …
Opening the batting for the Jozi Stars in the Mzansi Super League (MSL)‚ Hendricks smashed 104 against the Durban Heat at the Wanderers on Friday evening and 108 against the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants at St George’s Park on Sunday afternoon‚ both times without being dismissed. He scored those 212 runs off 113 balls‚ hammering only four fewer runs in sixes than he did in fours. Hendricks belongs to the classy ranks of the cricketers who don’t talk themselves up – “It was my day to get the accolade but it was a good batting performance‚” he said after Friday’s game. Opposition captain Jon-Jon Smuts also sang his praises on Sunday. “Reeza batted out of his socks‚” Smuts said.
“If you look at the whole scorecard‚ in both innings‚ he’s the only guy who’s really taken the game away. “Everyone else pretty much got run-a-ball or worse.”
No one matched Hendricks’s strike rate of 174.19 on Sunday‚ and he leads the competition in balls faced – 162 in four innings, and his average of 133.50 is the only one in three figures. He also owns the highest score and is the leading run-scorer with 267.
But it’s the double hundreds that will hit the headlines. Not even Chris Gayle‚ modern cricket’s biggest hitter and a sucker for any T20 competition any time‚ anywhere‚ has had centuries in consecutive T20 innings at senior level. Not that Hendricks is the first player to accomplish the feat. He isn’t the first do so in South Africa‚ nor even the first in his country this year. The latter distinction belongs to Marco Marais‚ who scored 103 and 106, both undefeated‚ both in East London for Border against Namibia and Mpumalanga in the Africa T20 Cup in September.
The first player to hit two T20 hundreds in a hurry in SA was another T20 mercenary‚ one Kevin Pietersen‚ who made 115 not out and 100 not out for the Dolphins against the Lions and the Knights at Kingsmead and in Kimberley on November 4 and 6 2015.