Petersen, Leie set up Lions win

Cape Town - Alviro Petersen capped a scarcely believable first half of the Momentum One-Day Cup season with his fourth hundred in five games to set the Highveld Lions up for a bonus-point win over the Knights at Senwes Park.

The one consistent in a topsy-turvy five games for the Lions has been Petersen's runs, and this time he found excellent support from Dwaine Pretorius, who scored 50 off just 22 balls and then took three wickets, as well as Eddie Leie, who completed his maiden five-wicket haul in List A cricket with the final act of the match according to the Cricket South Africa website. 

The end result of those contributions was victory by a whopping 184 runs and five points in the bag. This lifted the Lions into the top half of the table at the halfway stage of the competition.

Just about the only thing that went right for the Knights was winning the toss, and after they had inserted the Lions, Shadley van Schalkwyk removed Rassie van der Dussen early on.

But thereafter Petersen took hold, adding 80 with Stephen Cook (42) and 143 with Neil McKenzie (56).

He reached his century off 107 balls before accelerating and was eventually caught at square leg off the bowling of Malusi Siboto for 134, giving him an aggregate of 450 runs from the first five games of the tournament.

That has put him on track to beat Cook’s Lions record of 567 runs in a one-day season, while he can also eye Mike Rindel’s 785 which is the record for a batsman in a South African one-day competition.

Chasing 318 to win, the Knights lost their in-form batsman, Rudi Second, to Lonwabo Tsotsobe in the third over, before Pretorius (3 for 22) removed Tumelo Bodibe, Reeza Hendricks and Patrick Botha in a single spell.

That reduced the Knights to 74 for four after 18 overs and put the result beyond doubt, and Leie put the visitors out of their mercy by dismissing top scorer Diego Rosier (40) before running through the middle and lower order.

The leg-spinner finished with figures of 5 for 30, as the Knights were bowled out for 133 in 34.5 overs.