The winning team
According to certain rankings, Waterkloof is currently the top cricket school in the country so their coming down to KZN to play Westville who are currently ranked 6th, was viewed with some degree of excitement by the cricketing fraternity. Both teams had played each other once before in a
20/20 format and Westville came through victorious.
Westville won the toss and elected to bowl.
Westville’s Jesse Smit immediately removed the visitor’s opening batsman – a sign that the ball was going to be difficult to judge on the damp track which seemed to favour the seamers. Bowlers of the day, Simon Von Staden with 3 wickets for 18 runs and Tyrone Koen with 3 wickets for 6 runs, put the visitors to the sword. Waterkloof were soon 95/9 with their final batsman retiring injured after he was struck on the knee by a full toss.
It would have appeared to the casual observer that the Westville batsmen would canter to victory when they went in to bat, but the muggy and damp conditions persisted and they immediately found the going just as tough as their opponents. Low scoring totals can be tricky at times and the batsmen had to apply themselves more than usual to play that rare bad ball. Both openers went out, caught at mid-wicket and third batsman Nick Pentz who had scored most of the runs the previous week, was run out. This placed the middle order under pressure to produce the runs. The match went down to the 33rd over, with Jesse Smit and Garryth Jackson wrapping up the victory.
Westville won the match by 2 wickets to keep their record intact against Waterkloof. In the process they have sent out a warning that their team of 2013 is going to be very difficult to beat.