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Cape Town - Cricket South Africa (CSA) has congratulated the Highveld Lions on being crowned CSA T20 Challenge champions.
They won the final franchise trophy of the season by beating the Warriors in today’s nail-biting Final by 11 runs with four balls to spare at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium.
“Congratulations to the Lions on their exciting victory,” commented CSA Chief Executive Thabang Moroe. “Although cricket remains a team game it would be remiss of me not to make special mention of the respective captain’s innings by Temba Bavuma and Jon-Jon Smuts.
“By any standard this was a wonderful final and well done to all the players, coaches and support staff on both sides.
“It has been a highly competitive season of franchise cricket with one of the highlights being the way the league play has gone down to the final weekend in deciding which four teams qualified for the semi-finals.
“This happened once again in this competition with the outcome depending on the finally completed league match between the Lions and the Titans.
“With a number of our Proteas missing the tournament because of their overseas commitments either at the Indian Premier League or the England county season this has provided the opportunity for a number of young players to make their mark. Ryan Rickelton, Matthew Breetzke, Sinethemba Qeshile and Bjorn Fortuin, who all featured in the Final, fall into this category and they are by no means the only ones.
“The future of our cricket looks very bright as our talent development pipeline continues to turn promising talent into polished diamonds.
“It has also been heartening to see young coaches making their mark at franchise level. Enock Nkwe has had a particularly outstanding debut season at the Lions, doing the franchise double, and Rivash Gobind at the Warriors and Ashwell Prince at the Cape Cobras have also done very well.
“I am sure the selectors at the various Mzansi Super League teams will have taken note of the outstanding individual performances during the CSA T20 Challenge,” concluded Moroe.
