The setting could not have been more suitable. A domestic final at Newlands, on a crisp Cape Town day, with no chance of weather interrupting play. A Friday before a public holiday to get the South African public in the mood. Interest in cricket high, thanks to the Cricket World Cup in the subcontinent. And for once, the Standard Bank Pro20 final looked to be contested by two teams who were genuinely the best overall performers in the tournament.

The Chevrolet Warriors booked their place in the Standard Bank Pr20 semi-finals after beating the Nashua Dolphins by four wickets in another last-ball thriller.

The Dolphins won the toss and chose to bat first at Kingsmead in Durban and Makhaya Ntini struck early to remove opener Cameron Delport for five. Some silly running saw Dolphin’s skipper depart just before the end of the fourth over and the home side looked shaky at 18-2.

The run rate ticket over slowly and the home side managed just 124 in their 20 overs thanks to some fine bowling by Ntini and Rusty Theron.

The Cape Cobras sealed their spot in the Standard Bank Pro20 semi-finals as Owais Shah played yet another whirlwind knock to help the home side secure a seven wicket win at Newlands.

Despite gloomy conditions and a U2 concert being on the same night, the Newlands faithful still came out to support their boys.

Things just did not go our way in the final. We did not bowl well with the new ball and Jacques Kallis and Ashwell Prince played really well to take the game away from us.

    I thought we could probably chase down anything between 150 to 160 and I thought we were in the game when we held the Warriors to only 58 off the first 10 overs.

    But, we gave them 30 to 40 runs too many and it was always going to be difficult to chase down 186.

What a great feeling to be Standard Bank Pro20 champions.

    If you had asked us before the season we would have gladly taken one trophy but to do the double is something really special.

    We have been trying to put a perfect game together all season but we could not quite pull it off.

    In the final we did all three disciplines just about perfectly so we ticked all the boxes and the match we played was probably just about the perfect Pro20 game.

    Even though we had posted such a big total we were not convinced the game was in the bag at the halfway stage.

What a relief to be into the Standard Bank Pro20 final. After winning the first match against the Cobras we wanted to keep the momentum going but halfway though our innings in Cape Town it looked as if we had lost our way.

    But the 50 partnership between Johan Botha and Craig Thyssen gave us something to bowl at and credit to my team for defending 121.

    The first six overs of the Cobras’ innings were crucial and we managed to take a few wickets to slow them down and then our spinners really put them under pressure.