The first day of the Grahamstown Schools Cricket Festival saw rain delays rule as teams were sent off and back onto the pitch on numerous occasions.
The first day of the Grahamstown Schools Cricket Festival saw rain delays rule as teams were sent off and back onto the pitch on numerous occasions.
This year's is the 14th edition of the annual schools festival hosted by St Andrew's College, with matches taking place at St Andrew's, Graeme College and Kingswood College cricket fields.
The festival games continue on Friday with final fixtures scheduled for Saturday 11 January.
A total of 16 teams will take part in the festival, with 2014 seeing the return of Woodridge College after a short absence from the festival. A newcomer to the festival will be Barker College all the way from Sydney, Australia.
The games start at 9am with the last 20 overs taking place from 5pm.
In Thursday's opening day of the Grahamstown Cricket Festival St Andrew's College came up against festival regulars Menlopark on Lower.
The morning started with heavy cloud overhead and humid conditions for the second day in a row. St Andrew's won the toss and again elected to field. The captains decision was backed up by brilliant opening spells from bowlers, Zach Melvill and Brian Ferguson, picking up 4 and 3 wickets respectively. This left the visitors reeling at 24/7 as play was interrupted by the first bit of a rain for the day.
On resumption the Menlo batsmen steadied the innings and shared a valuable 32 run partnership. The partnership was broken by the young St Andrew's legspinner, Simon Taylor, who then went on to wrap up the tail, picking up the last three wickets. Menlopark finishing on 63 all out before play was interrupted again due to rain.
Play continued after lunch with St Andrew's starting their run chase but the ball continued to dominate as St Andrew's kept losing wickets.
The opening bowlers from Menlo bowled excellently as St Andrew's were limping closer to their target.
Gordon Everard had played well for his unbeaten 20 as things were in the balance at 41/5. However the heavens opened for the final time causing huge puddles to form on the outfield and forcing the umpires to call an end to the day's play.
The match ended in a draw.
