The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
AMAKHOSI rose to the top of the log in the National Premier League when they prevailed by six wickets over Great Zimbabwe Patriots through the Duckworth–Lewis–Stern method in a rain affected cricket encounter at Queens Sports Club on Sunday.
The Bulawayo team now has 22 points, secured from two wins and a no result. With Harare Kings, who headed into Sunday’s fixture on top of the log coming out second best by eight wickets to Easterns at Mutare Sports Club, Amakhosi are now the log leaders in the NPL and are yet to taste defeat.
Man of the match Allan Chigoma top scored with an unbeaten 63 off 58 balls to guide Amakhosi past their revised target with four wickets down. Chigoma shared in an uninterrupted stand of 78 runs for the fifth wicket with skipper Ainslely Ndlovu who finished 29 not out, the same score as Thamsanqa Nunu who was removed by William Mashinge.
Earlier on, Mashinge top scored for the Patriots with 47 while a quick fire 42 off 37 deliveries from Andre Odendaal took the visitors to 183 overs in 45 overs. Veteran off spinner John Nyumbu had three wickets for 36 while seamer Steve Chimhamhiwa had 2/48.
The match was interrupted by rain and this led to a loss of overs as well as the Amakhosi target being revised to 151 runs in 29 overs.
Amakhosi had actually not gotten off to such a great start in their run chase before the rain interruption as they were on 36/3 with the match seemingly slipping away from them. Chigoma and Nunu steadied things for the Bulawayo team with some brilliant strokes. When Nunu departed, Ndlovu was promoted up the order and did not disappoint as he played an uncharacteristically aggressive innings which saw him hit three fours and a six.
At Kwekwe Sports Club, Takashinga defeated Queens by five wickets. Despite the defeat, there were notable performances from Queens with Ian Fuzane scoring 50 and left arm spinner Tanatswa Bechani continued with his brilliant display with ball in hand when he picked up four wickets for 33 runs. Bechani is the leading wicket taker in the NPL with 10 wickets from three matches.
Midwest defeated Rainbow by six wickets through the DLS method in another rain affected match.
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