Eagles chomp up Dolphins

The Standard Bank PRO20 Series started its second season at Goodyear Park, Bloemfontein on Wednesday evening with the title holders, the Eagles, convincingly beating the Dolphins by 70 runs.

Winning the toss and sending the Eagles in to bat, the Dolphins spilled a few chances as Morne van Wyk (35) and Jonathan Beukes (36) made a solid start putting on 67 in the first eight overs as they laid the foundation to the innings.

It was an ideal position to come to the crease as Davey Jacobs scored 44 off 32 balls giving the innings the required impetus while the remaining batsmen smashed away at better than a run a ball. In the end 14 boundaries and four sixes helped the Eagles to 171 for 7 in their 20 overs.

The surprise for the Dolphins was the two wickets picked up by part-time legbreak bowler Ahmed Amla to join Imraan Khan as the main wicket-taker.

The Dolphins innings never got off the ground with wickets falling at regular intervals as Johan van der Wath and Cliff Deacon (taking two wickets apiece) kept the batsmen under pressure. Two further run-outs and two wickets in four balls to Man-of-the-Match Thandi Tshabalala had the heart of the batting ripped out of the Dolphins as they collapsed to 101 for 9 when the overs ran out. The Dolphins had only struck six boundaries with Shaun Pollock top scoring with 18.