Western Province’s Tony de Zorzi celebrates reaching a double century against the Knights at Newlands. He eventually ended the innings on an unbeaten 304 Western Province’s Tony de Zorzi celebrates reaching a double century against the Knights at Newlands. He eventually ended the innings on an unbeaten 304. Photo: Phando Jikelo/African News Agency (ANA)
Cape Town — Western Province have returned to the old-school values of playing four-day cricket and it has been tremendously successful for Salieg Nackerdien's team.
Province completed their second consecutive comprehensive victory at Newlands on Saturday, handing the Knights an innings and 155-run thrashing. It follows on from WP's equally dominant innings and 210-run victory over the Rocks last weekend.
After a rain-affected draw against the Titans at Centurion in their opening game of the season, this leaves WP just 2.12 points shy of the table-topping Warriors, who have a 100% record, having won all three of their matches.
The central aspects of WP's success so far has been their batters ability to score big hundreds, with Tony de Zorzi breaking the record books this past weekend with the first-ever triple century at Newlands in first-class cricket.
Fellow top-order batter Mohammad Yaseen Vallie also struck a composed 136 to set up WP's mammoth 575/7 declared.
It was 18 runs more than last weekend's 557/5 declared when captain Kyle Verreynne struck 201 not out and De Zorzi another 163.
But it has not been the batting unit alone that has taken on the responsibility. The bowlers have performed splendidly as a collective, with the seamers initially dismissing the Knights for 111 on the first day before the spin of George Linde (3/64) and Aviwe Mgijima (1/21) toiled collectively on the third day after the Knights offered up greater resistance in compiling 309 in 98.3 overs second time around.
"I am very happy the guys deserve another win for the way they fought today. Obviously the way we started the game set it up, with the batters through Tony's 300 and Mo Vallies's 136 and that set the tone and the momentum through our innings," coach Nackerdien said.
"I am also very happy that we were able to take 20 wickets again. All the bowlers were very good, and the fact that nobody had taken a fiver yet shows that everyone is contributing.
"I think we are doing the basics well and executing our plans. The way we played in the last two games is all about discipline, which is the way we want to go about our game going forward. It's about winning each and every session."
WP will be ruing the fact that the four-day competition now takes a break when they are in red-hot form, and will only resume again in February.
They will instead have to switch their focus to the CSA One-Day Cup, and hope they can continue this new-found momentum in the white-ball competition that starts this Sunday against the Dolphins at Newlands.
IOL Sport
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