Rassie van der Dussen set Canada ablaze with a 24-ball 51 in the season opener of the Global T20 League on Friday evening.
The first match of the Canada-based Global T20 League saw the Toronto Nationals take on the Vancouver Knights on Friday.
Proteas and Vancouver Knights batter, Rassie van der Dussen put on a show of note in his first dig in the tournament, striking five sixes and two fours in his knock.
Van der Dussen’s innings on Friday evening would have silenced quite a lot of critics, as the South African, registered an incredible 212.5 strike-rate, after facing criticism for a slow strike-rate in white-ball cricket.
Van der Dussen’s knock was in vein though in the context of the match as the Vancouver Knights slipped to a nine-run defeat.
Reeza Hendricks was another South African in the colours of the Knights, with the 33-year-old occupying his signature spot at the top of the order alongside Pakistan’s Fakhar Zaman.
Hendricks was dismissed for a duck on Friday, a rare sight from the batter seeing that he has been in a form of his life in T20 cricket and in white-ball cricket in general during the past year.
With ball in hand, Hendricks returned figures of 1/13 in his solitary over while another South African, Corbin Bosch, also a Vancouver Knights player, returned figures of 1/25 in his three overs.
All the efforts from the South Africans were negated by Colin Munro’s knock of 78 off 45 deliveries and Shahid Afridi’s 12-ball 23, as the Toronto Nationals set a target of 152 runs for the Vancouver Knights to chase.
Since the match was delayed due to a wet out-field, the contest was reduced to 15-overs per side and that meant the Vancouver Knights needed to strike at just over 10 runs an over to win.
But tight spells from the Toronto Nationals’ bowlers won them the match.