South Africa Wins Hong Kong Cricket Sixes

South Africa won the KARP Hong Kong Cricket Sixes Cup Final against Pakistan comfortably in the end, last Sunday Oct 28, in a magnificent performance to take the title.

Batting first against defending champions Pakistan, South Africa unleashed a display of power-batting to set a total of 141 off the 40 balls.

In reply, Pakistan looked well on track with 53 runs in the first two overs, then disaster struck with three wickets falling in the third over and another batsman being run out in the fourth. Pakistan could only make 105 runs, losing by 37 runs.

The big number 13 for South Africa, Robert Frylinck, explained his feelings after his amazing power batting display in the Cup Final, while his team were still batting after he’d retired.

“It has been a great tournament and an awesome team effort by the boys. It is not just the six on the field, it’s all eight of us in the squad that have done nicely,” Frylinck told The Epoch Times.

“We have been fortunate we have batted and played well, played our shots and bowled well.

“Lucky it has gone our way. Hopefully we can take it through to the [end of the] Final as well—we have made a good start here.”

Speaking generally, Frylink expressed his pleasure regarding the event.

“It is my first time here and it has been a fantastic experience, has been awesome; the support from the crowd has been awesome and it has been a really, really good tournament—unbelievable,” he continued.

South Africa had a great tournament, beating England and Hong Kong in the Pool matches and followed this with a clean sweep of wins in the Cup competition; beating Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, before again beating Pakistan in the Cup Final.

Pakistan were in fine form again in the Cup competition, much to the jubilation of their large fan-base, narrowly beating Hong Kong and Sri Lanka, but ominously losing to South Africa on their way to the Cup Final.

Sri Lanka could not maintain their fine performance of day one when they won all of their three matches, making some sizable run totals. In the Cup they disappointed, losing to Hong Kong, South Africa and Pakistan.

Pool-A

Hong Kong team led by Wicket Keeper/Batsman Jamie Atkinson in his first Sixes tournament played superbly qualifying for the Cup competition after fine wins against England and Australia, and although losing narrowly to South Africa, they finished top – a wonderful performance by the whole team.

In their first match against Australia, Hong Kong made an amazing 134 runs off 30 balls (the highest run-rate of the competition) to beat Australia by 67 runs. Although Hong Kong then lost to South Africa in their next match, they went on to set a target of 76 runs for England and bowled tightly to restrict England to 71 runs for 3 wickets.

England and Australia both played poorly in their Pool-A matches, only managing one win each.

Pool-B

Pakistan, with a strong bowling line-up and depth batting attack, easily won their first two round-robin matches against Netherlands and India, but slipped up against Sri Lanka, losing by four runs. With supreme performances, they really looked the part and were firm favourites to win the title. Pakistan moved forward into the Cup competition with a lot of excitement from their large fan base, together with Sri Lanka who played well on the first day to top Pool-B. India and Netherlands were relegated to the Plate competition.

Plate

Australia picked up their performance in the Plate Semi-finals, beating India by 15 runs, while Netherlands overcame England by a similar margin.

In the Plate Final, Australia re-discovered their awesome batting capability (albeit too late for the Cup) by knocking off the 78-run total set by the Netherlands without losing a wicket and with one-and-a-half overs to spare.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s effort to reach the Cup round-robin stage was admirable. Unlucky to miss the Final, they beat Sri Lanka by 6 wickets; lost narrowly to Pakistan by 2 runs; and, lost to Cup winners South Africa.

Next week:  On Nov 4: HKCC Scorpions are at home to KCC Infidels; KCC Templars are at home to HKCC Optimists; LSW JKN play Pakistan Assoc AMSHA at Mission Road; and Shaffi’s Vagabonds play KCC Knights at PKVR Sports Ground.