Border waste no time to fire up in Cape fight

Border bounced back from their poor start to the 2018 Coca-Cola Khaya Majola Week with a morale-boosting win over Northern Cape in their rain-affected T20 match at Bishops in Cape Town on Tuesday morning.
After rain threatened to wash out the morning’s play, some welcomed clear skies saw the match reduced to a 10-over spectacle that Border then took by the scruff of the neck and claimed a good eight-wicket win.
“I am relieved, it was a close game,” admitted Border coach Andre de Beer after the match.“After a difficult start to the week this result was coming, it will be a massive boost to the players and it is well-deserved.
“I said to them after the Gauteng match (on Monday) that we can still turn the week around and if we can win our last four games it will be a successful week, we must just stick to our brand of positive cricket.”
In the match Northern Cape batted first and a good bowling effort from Border meant they were restricted to 71/4 at the end of their 20 overs.Andrew Louw (26 off 26 balls) top-scored for Northern Cape, while Orapeleng Motlhoaring (17 not out off 12) and Jan Duvhenage (11 off 10) pitched in with small cameos, but some really tight bowling from Border kept them in check.
Captain Matt Dewar (1/5), Luke Dallas (1/16) and Sesethu Mayase (1/19) were the wicket-takers, while Siymathanda Zini effected a runout.Border’s chase then got off to a good start thanks to openers Stuart Els and Bayolise Tunyiswa who shared 35 for the first wicket before Els fell for 24 off 18 balls (4x4).
Tunyiswa then went out for 14 with the score on 50, but Border had no more problems as Dewar(27 off 16 balls, 2x4, 1x6) guided his team home with Emihle Mqogi (4no).
They did only reach the target with one ball to spare, but the result never looked in doubt after a confident chase.“I thought it was a really good effort from the bowlers, I thought we could chase 110 or 120, so to keep them to 70 was fantastic,” said De Beer.
“I knew if the guys just took the chase easy and as deep as possible we would be able to coast home.”
Despite the good vibes garnered from their first win of the tournament Border were then in trouble in their second T20 match at the time of going to print.
After the bowlers did superbly to limit Mpumalanga to 107/8 in their 20 overs, Border were then struggling on 63/7 after 14 overs and looking like they may just lose the match.
EP then suffered heartbreak in their T20 match against Northern Cape in the afternoon as they lost by four wickets.
In a low-scoring match that was dominated by slower bowlers, EP batted first and scored 113/8 in their 20 overs, before Northern Cape came in and just the total down with four balls to spare to consign them to their first loss of this year’s Coke Week...

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