104 runs | 50 balls | 9 fours | 6 sixes. It was a knock for the ages, and the local boy in MI Cape Town’s colours, put on a show. At the end of it, here he is, talking his heart out at the post-match press conference. Excerpts .. 

On enjoying the conditions in Jo’burg

Obviously I love playing here. I have played here for about 12 years for the Lions, so it’s a home for me. This afternoon, I walked towards the home dressing room and realized that I had to go to the away changing room. I love playing here. I know all of them by name, the change room attendants and the catering; all of them embracing me, I love coming here, playing here. Obviously in different colours, so it’s a strange experience but yeah, this is my favourite ground in the world. 

On the reasons behind his enthusiastic celebration

I think I have played a lot here. Ryan Rickelton and I are two local boys. We know how to bat here. We had good plans coming into this because we knew what to expect. It was just the realization that we executed that. They have a very good bowling lineup, the wicket was going around at the start, but we stuck to what we wanted to do and communicated well. We know this ground like the back of our hands. The last few years, I have been in the middle-order, up and down the order, where you don’t get as many chances to get a hundred. I don’t know when my last T20 hundred was, maybe eight years ago. Nice to be back at the top of the order, which is where I started my career. It was special. 

Thoughts on the pitch

We weren’t really sure what to expect. But when I saw it out there, it looked to me like the old Wanderers wicket. When you make your mark out there, you can see the water levels, and when I made my mark out there today, I saw what was fairly dry on top, but still hard and firm. With all the moisture and the rain, we expected it to swing about and be tricky in the first few overs. To an extent, we were relieved when they played three spinners. What we did well was identify it early and went back to the traditional Wanderers’ gameplan. 

On whether he wants to make a statement in the SA20

Definitely. There is a T20 World Cup this year and I want to be in the position to put in strong performances and be in the reckoning for that. I haven’t been playing, there have been guys who’ve done well. The last time I played was against Australia where I got starts but not really too much. I am realistic in the sense that my numbers in the last year or two have albeit not been bad, but I haven’t been shooting the lights out. From my side, I want to be in a position to put in strong performances. I know what I can do and what kind of a T20 player I can be. Hopefully today is the start of that. The SA20, the PSL and domestic CSA T20 coming up, so it’s going to be 3-4 months of T20 cricket. As a player all you can do is put on the performances and put the numbers on the board. I am not special or above anybody else. If they are going to select on performances, your name has to be up there.

On Ryan Rickelton being ignored by the SA selectors

I think he has been hard done by for not being part of the squad in any of the squads against India. He’s had a very good 2-3 years in all formats. He was in the mix earlier in the year before he got left out. I know how badly he wants to play international cricket. But he’s a brilliant 50-over and T20 player. Quinny (Quinton de Kock) is going to be moving on, and he fits into that mould of someone who’s going to replace Quinny. He is very resilient. Sometimes he sits back and gives you the platform to come back. He keeps his head down. He was disappointed to not be in the squad, I mean anybody would be. But we put in a lot of good work into his game in Cape Town. All the guys were there a week earlier. We had really good warm up games and trainings there. I am glad it has come off for him so far, and really hope he has a really strong season too to remind the world of what a world class player he is. I have seen what he can do. If he puts the numbers on, you can’t really ignore him.