POLLARD 'THE BOWLER' ROLLS BACK THE YEARS

On Tuesday evening at Newlands, the Sunrisers Eastern Cape opening pair of Jordan Hermann and Dawid Malan were cruising at 138-0 when MI Cape Town's skipper Kieron Pollard decided to take a punt.

All of Kagiso Rabada, Beuran Hendricks, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran, George Linde and Olly Stone had taken the ball without being able to find a way past Hermann and Malan. In the process the two left-handers helped themselves to 11 fours and eight sixes on the way to setting new partnership records for the League’s defending champions and, in fact, Newlands itself in the Betway SA20-era.

As Pollard ambled up to bowl his first ball, and floated it to a good length outside off-stump, Malan’s eyes lit up. The Englishman lined up a big cross-bat shot only to miss-time it and bunt a return catch to the big Trinidadian – which he gleefully accepted and celebrated.

Considering the now 36-year-old rarely bowls in matches (he hasn’t done so in more than half a year), he might have decided that his job was done and reverted to his frontline bowlers.

He didn’t.

In Pollard’s next over, Hermann took a single off the first ball before Aiden Markram scored 10 runs off the next four deliveries.

But MICT’s wily captain had a trick up his sleeve. With his opposing captain going hard, Pollard took the pace off with another full length delivery outside off. Markram tried to flick it away to leg only to leading edge it to point where Linde dived forward for an excellent low catch – sending Markram on his way for 19. The double breakthrough arguably brought MICT into the clash.

“I haven’t bowled for about six to right months, obviously coming off a shoulder injury. You know the old man still has some sorta something in him - it was just a matter of using the angles, obviously I don’t have pace and stuff like that so you just see what can happen.”

Pollard had no concerns about his rustiness.

“Of course, I could get hit for 36 runs but they were going at knots anyway. For us it was just about trying to seize moments and I just thought we got back in the game. I still thought it was a par total because at one stage they were aiming for 250 and 220 which would have been a very challenging total.”