Comfortable wins for Lions, Cobras

Lions 162 for 7 (De Kock 47, Pretorius 38, Parnell 2-23) beat Warriors 115 (Harmer 33, Viljoen 3-12) by 47 runs
Scorecard

Lions continued their unbeaten run in the tournament with a convincing 47-run win against Warriors in Potchefstroom. After putting up 162 in their 20 overs, Lions, led by Hardus Viljoen's 3 for 12, dismissed Warriors for 115 in 18 overs.

Put into bat first, Lions got a strong start through a 53-run stand between Quinton de Kock and Gulam Bodi. They lost Bodi and Neil McKenzie within three overs but de Kock kept them steady. De Kock and Sohail Tanvir were then run out off consecutive deliveries and Jean Symes was soon bowled for seven. Temba Bavuma and Dwaine Pretorius put on 61 runs in 34 balls for the sixth wicket which propelled Lions to 162.

Warriors were jolted in the first over by Tanvir, who dismissed JJ Smuts for a duck. There was a brief stand between Christiaan Jonker and Colin Ingram, but Lions struck to remove both and Wayne Parnell - all at the score of 34. Viljoen accounted for two of those wickets. Warriors lost regular wickets from there on and apart from a 23-ball 35 by No. 8 Simon Harmer, there wasn't much resistance as they were restricted to 115.

A quick unbeaten 80 by Richard Levi helped Cape Cobras comfortably overhaul Dolphins' total with more than three overs to spare at Newlands. Chasing a middling 135, Levi scored at run-a-ball for the first five overs, but changed gears with two fours and a six off the first three balls of the sixth. He got to his half-century off 31 balls and with Dane Vilas, who came in at the fall of opener Stiaan van Zyl in the fifth over, forged an unbeaten century stand to give Cobras their third win in four matches.

Dolphins, who had chosen to bat, were in early trouble at the start of the match. They lost their top three with only 22 runs on the board. But they rebuilt the innings, although at a slow pace, through an 84-run fourth-wicket stand between Vaughn van Jaarsveld and Ravi Bopara, who was the dominant of the two. Bopara cleared the boundary thrice in his 44-ball 60 and was out of the last ball of the innings.