A furious assault by the North-West top order secured their position in the semi-finals of the Africa T20 Cup.

They went through the weekend unbeaten, ending by hammering Western Province by 64 runs after they ran up 191-3 in their 20 overs

Janneman Malan and Rassie van der Dussen, having been sent in to bat, stamped their authority on the game almost immediately, despite the tricky and variable batting surface.

The two took only one run from the opening over, but then proceded to add 64 in the remaining five overs of the powerplay.

Van der Dussen fell for 40 off 23 balls (5×4, 2×6) the following over, but Malan sailed on to 70 off 48 (7×4, 3×6), well supported by Wihan Lubbe (37 off 31) and a hard-run blitz from Nicky van den Bergh, who hammered 25 off 12, with three boundaries (2×4, 1×6).

With such a formidable task ahead of them, Western Province needed to come out firing with the type of display which saw them beat KwaZulu-Natal by nine wickets on Saturday.

Then it was Jason Smith (79 off 43) and Pieter Malan (72 off 48) who hit the headlines as they chased down 165 with 21 balls to spare.

Yesterday, however, neither was able to get going as Western Province were smashed back to 36-3 in the final powerplay over. A stand of of 32 between Zubayr Hamza (16) and Sybrand Englebrecht (16) was as good as it got as the North-West spinners scythed through the line-up, bowling them out with a ball to spare.

It left the remaining match of the weekend, between bottom team KwaZulu-Natal Inland and Namibia, a dead rubber. For the record, the Natalians registered theri first win, beating the visitors by 62 runs, bowling them out for 84 in 18 overs. The Inland score of 149 was built on the foundation of 50 off 31 balls (5×4, 2×6) by Tshepang Dithole.

The three other pools play off over the next three weekends to select the other semi-finalists, who will meet on 30 Sept.

North-West v WP scorecard

KZN Inland v Namibia scorecard