The Northern Knights started from where they left the qualifications and registered a thumping win over Cape Cobras in their rain-affected match of the Champions League T20 today.
Kane Williamson (101 not out), who is enjoying a purple patch at the moment, was instrumental in Knights’ 33 runs (D/L) win by striking an unbeaten ton in Raipur.
The Black Caps international played a scorching 49-ball 101 knock and struck the fastest century in the Champions League, surpassing Neil Broom’s record.
Williamson was at his dazzling best against the Cobras and hit five sixes and eight boundaries and enjoyed a 140-run partnership with Anton Devcich for the first wicket.
Cobras missed their bowling spearhead, Dale Steyn dearly as both Devcich and Williamson make their mockery and thrashed them all over the park.
The first wicket partnership set the tone of the match and from then onwards the result was pretty much clear as the Trans-Tasman side gave a 207 runs target to the South Africans.
However, the Knights lost Devcich (67) and Daniel Flynn (0) on quick successions but a 20-ball 32 from BJ Watling made sure that the kiwi side finish no less than 200.
Charl Langeveldt was the pick of the bowlers and struck twice toward the end, while Vernon Philander also picked two but he was on an expensive side.
The pressure of a colossal target was pretty evident on Cobras and they lost opener Stiaan van Zyl for a duck, when a perfect first ball from Trent Boult crashed onto the stumps.
Both Knights pacemen, Tim Southee and Boult, open the game with a bag of snakes and created pressure by knotting the batsmen.
With scoreboard pressure mounting, Cobras lost their second wicket, when Hashim Amla (20) was dismissed by Scott Kuggeleijn.
The Knights were heading for a massive victory just when the heavens opened up and it started raining heavily at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium.
Cobras were nowhere near to the Duckworth–Lewis par score and eventually lost the encounter. Robin Petersen (17) and Omphile Ramela (4) remained unbeaten.
Both Amla and Petersen opted for a pretty bizarre approach, after losing van Zyl, and looked to rebuild the innings and did not think about the approaching rain.
The ploy of reconstructing the innings backfired and the Cobras went on to lose the game by Duckworth–Lewis method, while Knights got all points from the tie.
