Mpumalanga Rhinos full of positives ahead of CSA 4-Day Series
The Rhinos enjoyed a largely successful T20 competition this year, when compared with years gone by.
Having ended the CSA T20 Knockout competition with two wins in a row, the Mpumalanga Rhinos will kick off the CSA 4-Day Series Division 2 in good form and high spirits.
This season’s T20 competition was the Rhinos’ most successful yet by some measure, on both team and player fronts. After a rocky start to the season, the Mpumalanga boys rallied towards the end to secure two wins from their last two games, including a thrilling super-over victory against the eventual victors of the competition, the Tuskers.
The two victories ensured the Rhinos finished sixth on 10 points, only a few points off a spot in the play-offs. It makes the 2024 season their most fruitful to date and offers up a lot of positive signs with a host of players stringing together good numbers throughout the CSA T20 Knockout.
On the fielding front, captain Muhammed Mayet had the joint third most catches of the competition, taking a total of four.
In the bowling rankings, Gareth Dukes was in great form as the Rhinos’ highest wicket taker. He finished seventh in the most wickets rankings (nine in total) as well as in the best strike rate rankings with a rate of 13.33 runs per wicket.
Themba Maupa also came in seventh in the best economy rate rankings, with a rate of 6.55 runs per over throughout the competition.
But they arguably shone best on the batting front. Benjamin van Niekerk had the fourth best average of the competition, scoring 130 runs at an average of 65. He also had the ninth highest strike rate, finishing with a strike rate of 146.06. Dukes proved capable with the bat, too, for the Rhinos, ending with the highest strike rate of the competition, scoring 87 runs with a strike rate of 181.25.
The Rhinos’ batting star of the T20 competition was, without a doubt, their top-scorer, Jurie Snyman, who scored 195 runs. He clubbed the fourth most sixes with 12 to his name, and finished with the ninth best average among batters that scored at least 100 runs.
Perhaps most notably, though, he had the joint most 50+ scores in the competition, reaching a half-century on three occasions. He will, however, be hoping to kick on to higher scores during the red ball competition as his highest score in the T20s was 55.
The Mpumalanga Rhinos will start the CSA 4-Day Series Division 2 in an encounter against Northern Cape Heat in White River on November 7.
