In his post-season analysis, Eastern Cape Iinyathi head coach Tumelo Bodibe said he was pleased with the progress the team made despite missing out on promotion to Division One.
For the first time since the introduction of the promotion and relegation system by Cricket SA, the Iinyathi finished in the top three.
They ended the season on Sunday by placing second on the promotion log (One-Day, T20, and Four-Day combined) with 21 points.
The Knights were elevated to the top flight with 45 points after claiming titles in all the formats.
The KuGompo City outfit reached two finals, the T20 and the One-Day Cup. On both occasions they succumbed to the Knights.
It was only the Four-Day campaign where they won only one game out of six.
Should the Iinyathi have had contrasting results with the red ball, Bodibe believes things would have gone down to the wire for the promotion spot.
Injury to key personnel in that campaign was the reason they did not do well.
“We had an excellent season and made progress,” the former wicketkeeper said.
“There were three games I felt we should have won that would have put us in a better position.
“In the T20 game against the Limpopo Impalas last year, we dropped points. The Impalas were last on the log.
“We should have won that match because at the end, we were one point behind the Knights.
“We beat the Impalas, we get 15 points [on the promotion log] for being No 1; that makes a difference.
“In Four-Day cricket we didn’t have a great campaign, and also we had to deal with a lot of injuries.
“I have never seen so many injuries in one season.
“We finished sixth, but we know we were better than that.
“Even that went down to a game we played against the Mpumalanga Rhinos.
“We needed two wickets and ended up drawing the game.
“In the One-Day Cup, we didn’t get a great start against the CSA emerging side. We were outplayed by them.
“The disappointing game was against the Knights in the round-robin.
“We were chasing 220, and we had a good opening partnership of more than 100, but we ended up losing that game.
“[If] we won that game against the Knights, we would have finished above them on the One-Day log,” he said.
With one season left in his contract, Bodibe hopes for continuity for next season with the same group of players.
But he acknowledged it might be difficult to keep some players during the transfer period.
“You know when you do well and come closer to being promoted, like we did, you get teams from Division One recruiting players that did well,” Bodibe said.
“We can’t stop players from getting better opportunities.
“I hope there won’t be many guys leaving us, and we continue from where we left off as opposed to rebuilding again.
“The oldest guy in our team is 29, which means we have a team with young guys that, if kept together, could win trophies and earn promotion.”
One of the standouts for the season was 26-year-old Nico van Zyl, who was the leading wicket-taker in the One-Day Cup and among the top five in the red-ball version.
Nathan Roux, who captained the team after the injury to Jerome Bossr at the start of the season, did well with the bat in all campaigns.
Alindile Mhletywa and Thozama Totana, who finished No 1 and No 2, respectively, in the T20’s leading wicket-takers column, were lauded by Bodibe as they stepped up to cover for injuries to Van Zyl and Chad Classen at the time.
Michael Copeland, Thando Ntini, Kgaudi Molefe and Wian Ruthven, who were new signings, also received praise from Bodibe.
Daily Dispatch
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