Glamorgan batsman delivers with bat and ball to help Warriors’ beat Lions by 7 wickets and secure a place in Friday’s final against Titans.
A slow St George’s Park pitch – that granted the spinners assistance – made strokeplay difficult, but from 77/2 at the halfway stage of their innings, the Highveld Lions wasted a decent platform in tonight's T20 Play Off struggling to 136/7. None of the Lions batsmen scored more than 32 runs.
Useful left-arm spin from captain Smuts helped strangle the Lions, but it was Colin Ingram who caused the damage with his leg-spin - that helped Glamorgan's T20 campaign in 2016 on more than one occasion - as he picked up the wickets of Van der Bergh (14) and Temba Bavuma (10).
Ingram also shone with the bat, skilfully crafting his half-century (56* off 46). The 31-year-old helped the Warriors pace their chase well and even though they lost Smuts in the third over and Clyde Fortuin as the Powerplay came to an end, they were in a strong position at 48 for 2. Ingram had only faced nine balls at that stage and was content to rotate strike and let his team-mates attack while he settled in.
Ingram bided his time until he was joined by Christiaan Jonker. With the right mix of aggression and caution, the pair put on 78 runs off 64 balls and eased the Warriors to victory with 10 balls to spare. Ingram's fifty came off 43 balls and was his third of the tournament. Smuts continued to lead the run charts, 14 ahead of Titans' Farhaan Behardien, who he will go head-to-head against in the final.
The Eastern Cape franchise and the Titans face off in Friday’s final.