Due to rain all the games at Gray College on the final day of the Coca-Cola Khaya Mojola week were cancelled. The organizers felt that they need to play the games that were considered 1-4 play-offs so they converted them to 20/20 games and played them at the better irrigated Outsurance oval, home of the Chevrolet Knights.
Boland vs Western Province
The first match of the day was between Western Province and Boland. Boland is often considered the poor cousin to the more favoured WP but they have produced some amazing players in the past and besides for being outclassed by Gauteng yesterday they have been extremely impressive in the tournament. Western Province, on the other hand, are a little lucky to be in this game because Northerns were actually a better team but they came up against the two top teams in the tournament and lost.
Boland won the toss and sent Western Province in to bat. They managed to score 71/2 off 10 overs in a rain affected innings. Their openers got them off to a good start with Givon Christian hitting 25 off 29 balls. The rest of the team chipped in with double figures, one only wonders what they might have scored if it was not for the rain. Boland’s power is actually in their batting and not bowling and they knocked off a revised total of 87 (10 overs) in 9.4 overs with the loss of 3 wickets. It looked as if it was a close game but truthfully Boland had the game in complete control and could have done it sooner if they needed to. Boland scores 150+ runs in both of their previous 20/20 games so this chase was not daunting for them at all. Their top batsmen were Jean Bredenkamp 27 (14 balls), Leon Le Roux 26* (25 balls), Stephen Baard 26 (16 balls).
Free State vs Gauteng
This match was truly against the top two teams in the tournament. It was a game that people spoke about and hoped for from day one and when Gauteng had their hiccup on day three when they rested some of their players it looked as if it was not going to happen. Gauteng easily beat Boland, which was unbeaten until then, and earned their way to the main game.
Free State batted first and everything went terribly wrong. The only partnerships that were worth talking about were the first wicket partnership of 35 and the sixth wicket of 26 otherwise it was not a great scorecard to look at. Brett Hall hit 21 off 21 balls and Simon Lisene and Thabo Masheshemane chipped in with 14 and 12 respectively. On the other hand most of Gauteng’s bowlers took wickets; David Sator took 2 for 11, Shaylen Pillay took 2 for 8, David Mogotlane took 1 for 16, David Rhoda took 2 for 19 and Keaton Jennings took 1 for 9. Free State were bowled out for 91 runs.
In response Gauteng started brilliantly and Quinton de Kock made up for his last disastrous innings by scoring 53 off 39 balls. He actually didn’t need to score a run today and he still would have been top scorer of the week. He opened the batting with Yasser Cook who impressed the Gauteng selectors in his brilliant innings yesterday. After the opening stand it was hard for Free State to get back into the game but they certainly tried by taking 3 wickets in a short space of time. Gauteng moved from 63/1 to 70/3 before Keaton Jennings, who slipped down the batting order to come in at 3, steered his team to victory with 20 off 27 balls. Gauteng won by 6 wickets with 9 balls to spare. Dante Vries gave Free State some hope with his 2/19 supported by Dwaine Calder (1/13) and Simon Lisene (1/6).
SA Schools and SA Colts
I’m not sure what the line up is going to be for the SA Schools team or the SA Colts because that will only be announced this evening during the award ceremony of the Coca-Cola Khaya Majola week but I am sure that most players will come from the Free State, Gauteng, Northerns and Boland. Northerns and Free State had the better bowlers of the tournament and Gauteng and Boland had the better batsmen.
In the end there were no unbeaten teams in this year’s tournament. The local team made their supporters proud and managed to hold their unbeaten status to the last day. Well done boys.
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