Codi Yusuf emerging from the shadows for Lions

Amid the understandable excitement being generated by Nqaba Peter, his Lions teammate Codi Yusuf’s impact has slipped under the radar in the past few weeks. 

While Peter has surged to second place on the bowling charts in the Cricket SA T20 Challenge, with 19 wickets, Yusuf has put together an excellent campaign of his own as the spearhead of the Lions attack, tasked with bowling in the trickiest periods including the power play and at the “death”.

“He bowls with good pace, which you wouldn’t think when you look at him, because he’s not tall or a big guy,” said Lions head coach Russell Domingo.

It was Yusuf who set the tone for the Lions in their eight-wicket win in Wednesday night’s semifinal against the Titans, by dismissing Luhan-dre Pretorius, the dangerous young opening batter, early with a beautiful delivery that moved off the seam and found the edge. 

“He also bowls with good shape, and has really improved for us in the ‘death’ overs,” said Russell. “He was excellent in the four-day series also, and he’s just a good young boy, with so much potential.” 

Yusuf has taken 14 wickets for the Lions, making him their third highest wicket-taker behind Peter and skipper Bjorn Fortuin, who has 16. Given the time he bowls, Yusuf’s economy rate of 7.77 is an impressive statistic and outlines just what an important player he is in a side packed with star quality. 

It was one of those big-name players, Rassie van der Dussen, who Domingo felt delivered a crucial performance for the Lions on Wednesday.

“That could have turned into a tricky chase. The target was only 134, but there was help for the new ball, and we lost a wicket in the first over, but Rassie took the game by the scruff of the neck and showed real intent from the beginning to get us to that total.”

Van der Dussen finished with an unbeaten 73, an innings that included eight fours and a six and in which he faced 45 balls. His partnership with Ryan Rickelton, which was worth 85 runs, snuffed out any hopes the Titans had of a successful title defence following the early dismissal of Reeza Hendricks. 

The Lions will have an “easy” build-up to Sunday’s final, which will be hosted at the Wanderers. “It’s going to be very chilled, we’ll have an optional session on Friday, a team [meeting] on Saturday to discuss some plans or specifics and other areas we’d like to improve,” Domingo said. 

Among those is the need to avoid bowling what Domingo called “soft balls”.

“Wiaan Mulder bowled a delivery that was the wrong ball for the field that was set. We also had a dropped catch, a misfield that went to boundary... they are little things, but in pursuing the ‘perfect game’, they are things we’d like to avoid in a final.”