Lions victorious as Knights collapse

Ken Borland

The Knights batsmen deviated radically from the set programme at the Wanderers yesterday as their astonishing collapse handed the Highveld Lions victory by an innings-and-22-runs in their Four-Day Domestic Series match.

The third day started with the Lions still busy with their first innings, on 333 for seven, already a lead of 67. They stretched that to 377 all out, Malusi Siboto scoring 33 and Ryan McLaren finishing with four for 82.

The Knights began their second innings midway through the morning session, facing a deficit of 111, and they recovered from early trouble at nine for two to reach 86 for three, Craig Alexander taking all three wickets and Keegan Petersen scoring 44.

And then the real action began as they lost an incredible seven wickets for just three runs. Fast bowler Migael Pretorius took two wickets in the 19th over, Beuran Hendricks swung the ball back into Petersen to trap him lbw in the next over, – and the in-form left-arm quick then took three more wickets in his next over.

Hendricks finished with four for 24 as the Knights disintegrated to 89 all out, giving him match figures of nine for 69 in 25.5 overs, for which he was announced as the man of the match.

The value of first-innings runs was also very apparent at SuperSport Park in Centurion as the Cape Cobras beat the Titans by eight wickets despite the home side’s second-innings total of 418.

The Titans’ remarkable comeback after trailing by 215 runs on first innings was led by Theunis de Bruyn’s singleminded century.

They resumed on the penultimate morning on 301 for five, but De Bruyn was caught top-edging a hook at Dane Paterson midway through the morning, falling for an epic, five-hour 147.