Cape Town — Western Province have issued a serious statement of intent at the CSA T20 Challenge in Gqeberha.
The only unbeaten team in the competition confirmed their table-topping status with an emphatic 84-run bonus point win over the North West Dragons. It also ensured the Newlands-based team's progression to the semi-finals - the first team to achieve this distinction.
Although the WP batters had managed to post a competitive total of 164/8, courtesy of a half-century from Jonathan Bird (53 off 44 balls) and some lower-order hitting by captain Wayne Parnell (33 not out off 17 balls), it was the bowling unit that simply blew away the Dragons.
Proteas left-arm seamer Beuran Hendricks set the tone with an inspired new-ball spell of 3-0-13-4. It tore the heart out of the Dragons' run chase and they were simply never able to recover from 17/4 after just 3.1 overs.
Hendricks was certainly helped with some brilliant catching, in particular by skipper Parnell, who threw himself acrobatically to his right to claim a two-handed catch goalkeeper style at mid-off.
And in true fashion of a team growing into a confident unit, Province never took their foot off the throat of the Dragons with leg-spinner Junaid Dawood maintening the pressure with an equally brilliant spell of 4-0-22-3 to control the middle overs.
Dawood claimed the important wicket of Proteas all-rounder Dwaine Pretorius before bagging Lesego Senokwane and Nono Pongolo in successive deliveries to reduce North West to 41/8.
The Potchefstroom outfit would certainly have expected more from a contest in which they had actually reduced WP to 134/8, courtesy of Muthusamy's equally impressive figures of 4/20, with just two overs remaining.
However, it was at this stage that Parnell swung the momentum of the game in Province's favour, which they ran with emphatically for the remainder of the match.
SCORECARD
Western Province: 164/8 (Jonathan Bird 53, Wayne Parnell 33*, Senuran Muthusamy 4/20, Delano Potgieter 2/27)
North West: 80 all out (Caleb Seleka 16, Wesley Marshall 15, Beuran Hendricks 4/20, Junaid Dawood 3/22)
Western Province win by 84 runs
IOL Sport