The untimely celebration
Jonathan Carter, having been the backbone of Barbados Tridents, took the liberty of soaking in the moment of his maiden T20 century. He broke into a smile the minute he nudged to the unmanned midwicket region and running down with his arms aloft. Ashley Nurse, his partner though, was completely unaware and was haring back for a second run. Carter was nowhere near interested. Charl Langeveldt added to the chaos by throwing to the wrong end, but Hashim Amla was on hand as back-up and nailed a direct hit at the keeper's end. Carter's ecstasy melted away as he sunk to his haunches and Nurse walked off shaking his head, without facing a ball.
The Jonty conundrum
Justin Ontong swooped in from cover. He shot a glance at the confusion between the two batsmen after plucking the ball with one hand. Raymon Reifer was halfway down the pitch in search of an ambitious single only to see his partner Dilshan Munaweera had turned tail. A run-out was for the taking. Ontong assessed he had enough time to race to the stumps at the keeper's end. As he neared his target though, Ontong was tempted to leap off his feet and demolish the stumps like another South African fielder. But Reifer was so far stranded there was really no need.
The comeuppance
His yes-no-sorry resulted in a run-out so Dilshan Munaweera decided to trust his partner's call in the 11th over. It wasn't a bad call considering Carter had worked the ball into a sprawling vacant space at midwicket. The only problem emerged in the form of a thin, blonde blur. Sybrand Engelbrecht had hunted the ball down from long-on all the way to the edge of the circle and hammered a flat through to the bowler's end to beat Munaweera's dive so emphatically that the umpire Rod Tucker didn't even need the assistance of the third umpire.
The sequence
Cape Cobras' uniforms were designed by a company called 466/64 fashion. Richard Levi found a novel way of getting them some additional advertising by imprinting number that on the scorecard, albeit in a slightly different sequence. Jason Holder began the third over with two length balls that were deposited into the crowd behind long-off and cow corner, two that erred on the fuller length were clattered to along the ground to the boundary and the final delivery of the over was emphatically hoisted over extra cover. So the final five balls of the third over read 6, 6, 4, 4 and 6.
The repeat
Cobras matches are fast getting a unique signature. Out came a harmless length ball in the 14th over, the batsman obliged with a mistimed aerial swipe. He is caught in the deep and the game looked all set to change until the umpires wanted to the check the bowler's front foot. It was a no-ball, again - last time it was a Vernon Philander no-ball costing Cobras. This time Cobras were the beneficiaries. Akeal Hosein, the culprit, watched Hashim Amla belt a glorious extra-cover four and be dropped in the next over before being able to breathe a sigh of relief when Jeeven Mendis finally had Amla stumped for 59.