The DP World Lions produced a tremendous batting display against the Dafabet Warriors at the weekend, and even though it turned out to be a damp squib with the visitors claiming a tight last-over victory, DP World Lions captain Dominic Hendricks was proud of the way the batsmen bounced back from a tough start to the season.
Hendricks led the way for the Pride at the DP World Wanderers Stadium as he stroked a superbly-fluent 92 off just 79 balls, taking us to a strong total of 330 for seven. The left-hander built brilliantly on the opening stand of 119 in 18-and-a-half overs by Josh Richards (76) and Ryan Rickelton (50).
“After a couple of bad performances with the bat, it was really good to bat like that. It’s always at the back of your mind when you haven’t started the season well, but we put that aside and played the conditions in front of us, which were much more familiar. It was a very good pitch and we put our demons aside and just cracked on. For me personally, I’ve had a bit of a rough start with two ducks, but I had some tough conversations with Hashim Amla [batting coach] and Russell Domingo [head coach]. We made a couple of technical changes and I’ve put in serious graft over the last week-and-a-half. All credit to them for all the work they put in over the last 7-10 days,” Hendricks said.
Excellent bowling up front by the DP World Lions, led by Duanne Olivier’s three-wicket new-ball burst and Malusi Siboto’s double strike, then put us in prime position as the Warriors were reduced to 99 for five in the 22nd over.
It took an extraordinary unbeaten century by Patrick Kruger to deny the DP World Lions though, with Hendricks admitting they were disappointed to let victory slip from their hands after being in such a strong position and said that the team needed to be poised to take every opportunity that presents itself in the field.
“Credit to Patrick for an absolute world-class knock and Beyers Swanepoel played a great innings as well, but if we’re honest with ourselves then we will know we had a handful of opportunities to dismiss them. We really just needed to break that partnership, but we did not bowl well to them at the start and they got off to a flyer. Once that partnership had bolted, it was really difficult to stem the momentum. So when we go to Paarl this weekend for the match against the Gbets Rocks, we have to do the basics really well with the fielding and bowling. We have to make sure we take our opportunities and in tight situations the team that does the basics best usually wins. With the bat, we just want to do much like the last game and have good partnerships, and hopefully one of the top three or four can really set up the innings,” Hendricks said.