Local derby cricket games are always a great spectacle and highly enjoyed by the schools involved. Last Saturday saw the Kingswood College first team host their Graeme College counterparts on Kingswood's City Lords field.
Local derby cricket games are always a great spectacle and highly enjoyed by the schools involved. Last Saturday saw the Kingswood College first team host their Graeme College counterparts on Kingswood's City Lords field.
Kingswood coach Gregg van Molendorff said his team hadn't quite played up to scratch this term, and although they've been winning games their batting hadn't met the standards they had set. Going into Saturday's derby game, the feeling was 'enough talking', he said, and the batsmen needed to start showing discipline and maturity at the crease.
Kingswood won the toss and opted to bat on a surface that looked like it would be on the slow side and possibly offer something for the seamers early on. They started off cautiously and the openers got off to a solid start with Dylan Kruger (32) being bowled out with the score on 68 in the 17th over. That brought Marco Lombard to the crease to join Anselm Castelyn.
Castelyn had a little luck as Graeme weren’t able to hold onto the odd chance, which allowed him and Lombard to get into a position where they started to dominate the Graeme attack around the 35th over. Both turned their cautious approaches to ruthless attacks in a partnership of 214 runs for the second wicket, with Lombard scoring a flawless 86 and Castelyn a massive 147.
Kingswood scored 119 runs in the last 10 overs, to end on 304 for 3 after their allotted 50 overs.
Graeme were going to have a tough job of chasing down the score and Lukhanyo Tshongweni showed the type of batting required as he scored a superb 69.
The Kingswood bowlers restricted their opponents though and took wickets at regular intervals. Jason Davidson seemed to find a particularly good rhythm as he knocked over most of Graeme's top order.
The Graeme innings never managed to gain enough momentum, and they were eventually bowled out for 151, handing Kingswood a convincing 153-run win.
