The Tops Awkward Turtles were crowned as the new champions of the Rhodes Internal Premier League (RIPL) T20 cricket tournament on Wednesday night with an impressive 15-run victory over the Panthers.
The Turtles are only the second team to win the trophy, with the Belmont Bashers having won the previous two editions of the tournament.
The Tops Awkward Turtles were crowned as the new champions of the Rhodes Internal Premier League (RIPL) T20 cricket tournament on Wednesday night with an impressive 15-run victory over the Panthers.
The Turtles are only the second team to win the trophy, with the Belmont Bashers having won the previous two editions of the tournament.
Batting first, without the services of ace batsman Chris van der Meulen, the Turtles notched up a competitive 145 for 6 in their 20 overs.
The Turtles were in a spot of bother at 29 for 2 in the fourth over, having lost both openers, but Dean McLuckie and form batsman Matt Clark steadied the ship. The pair put on 41 runs off 40 balls to set the Turtles up for a big finish.
Craig Dargie was the man to provide the big hitting for the Turtles, as he has all season. Coming in at number five, Dargie made Jimmy Hitchcock pay for dropping him early on as be blasted his way to a powerful 30. Eddo Gouws’s unbeaten cameo of 29, along with Dargie's and Clark’s 30s, pulled the Turtles across the 140 mark as they took a valuable advantage into the change of innings break.
In the Panthers' bowling department it was Rhodes 1st XI legspinner and Panthers skipper, Brendan Smith, who was the pick of the bowlers. He grabbed 2 for 23 in four overs, taking the key wickets of Dargie and McLuckie. However Smith will be rueing giving the 16th over to military medium bowler Jarred Byron, as Dargie took him for 18. That left Byron with expensive figures of 1 for 42 in 4 overs and allowed the Turtles a strong finish.
In reply, the Panthers could muster only 130 for 6; however, they were always well behind the eight-ball, as the Turtles seemed in firm control of proceedings.
The Panthers' run chase started poorly, as they found themselves behind the required run-rate from the outset. They were reeling at 38 for 3 after 8 overs, as Smith and the team’s tournament leading runs-scorer, Kevin Johnstone, found themselves back in the hut.
Heavy afternoon rains and evening dew slowed up the outfield immensely. This, along with some tight bowling from the Turtles, meant the Panthers could not find many boundaries. The hallmark of the Panthers' batting was thus their running between the wickets – which was superb. But six boundaries in their innings was not nearly enough to keep up with a climbing run rate.
The loss of regular wickets stifled the Panthers' momentum, as none of their batsmen got set. They left their lower order with too much to do, as they required 55 runs off the last five overs. Lloyd Herold was the Panthers' best batsman, notching up a valiant, unbeaten 30.
However, as was the case with the rest of his teammates, Herold could not find the fence regularly and was thus unable to take his team across the line.
Gouws was the hero for the Turtles with the ball, as the seamer picked up 2 for 18 in 3 overs. He clean bowled the big hitting Panthers' middle order of Leard King and Shane Murphy, which swung the momentum of the game in favour of the Turtles.
An ecstatic Turtles skipper, Doug Nupen, lifted the trophy in front of a partisan 150-strong crowd at Great Field. It capped off yet another exciting edition of the RIPL, which has improved the standard of Rhodes cricket significantly. Organisers are looking to expand the tournament next year and are hoping to incorporate the Grahamstown Cricket Board, so as to grow the game of T20 in the region.
Earlier in the afternoon, the Smuts Sultans overcame the Pink Platypuses by five runs in a rain-interrupted match to claim the Plate trophy. Smuts scored 152 in their 20 overs and a depleted Platypus side fell marginally short of the revised target of 113 in 15 overs. The Platypuses showed great character in their debut season and proved their critics wrong. Injuries marred what could have been a dream season for the men in pink who had an impressive win over beaten finalists, the Panthers, in the group stages.
At a brief prize giving after the final, Stuart Allcock and Charles Muir, of the Bashers, walked away with top run-scorer and top wicket-taker of RIPL 2011. Allcock ended the tournament with 185 runs in 4 innings at an average of 92 with a top score of 59 not out. Muir led the wicket-taking stakes with 10 wickets in his four games and was marginally ahead of the Turtles' Matt Clark, who had eight.
