Overseas player: Andre Russell Capacity: 20,000 Captain Werner Coetsee Date founded 2003 | Colours: Blue Gold Official website: Knights Coach Nicky Boje | |
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Home ground: Mangaung Oval, Diamond Oval Grounds Mangaung Oval, De Beers Diamond Oval Profiles | ||
The VKB Knights are a franchise cricket team composed of the Free State and Griqualand West first class cricket areas in South Africa. The team previously competed as the Diamond Eagles. Their home venues are the Mangaung Oval, Bloemfontein and the Diamond Oval in Kimberley, and the side competes in the Sunfoil Series, the Momentum 1 Day Cup, and the Ram Slam T20 Challenge
Contents
Playing kit
During the Momentum 1 Day Cup, the Knights's play in dark blue shirts and trousers with gold accents; for the Ram Slam T20 Challenge they wear dark blue shirts with gold accents and gold trousers with dark blue accents. Their current kit provider is TK Sports.
Squad
Players with international caps are listed in bold.
Contracted players and second team players who have represented Knights in the 2015/16 and 2016/17 season.
Qualification and first round
Diamond Eagles finished second in the 2009 Standard Bank Pro20 and became eligible to play in the 2009 Champions League Twenty20. The team was placed in Group B with New South Wales Blues and Sussex Sharks. The team lost their first match against the New South Wales Blues and were not able to make 100 runs and stayed on 91/9 but the second match went for a tied with Sussex Sharks in which the scores were tied at 119/7 (Sussex) and 119/4(Eagles). Eagles clinched the Super Over. In the Super Over Eagles scored 9/1 while Sussex were knocked of the first two balls by Cornelius de Villiers and the Man of the Match was awarded to Rilee Rossouw.
Second round
After some twists and turns Eagles made it to the next round where they were placed in League A with New South Wales Blues, Somerset Sabres and Trinidad and Tobago. They were counted as a loss to Blues as their previous result and a win against the Somerset Sabres but lost against the Trinidad side in a must-win match. CJ de Villiers again performed well in the game against Somerset CCC. They didn't qualify for the semis but earned 7th out of 12 teams.