The second edition of South Africa’s university T20 cricket tournament, Varsity Cricket, will kick off on Monday, January 25. Potchefstroom will once again play host to the thrilling six-day tournament, where South Africa’s top universities will compete for the ultimate title in university cricket.
The winners will represent South Africa at the 2016 Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals. Winners of the inaugural competition, University of Pretoria (UP-Tuks), successfully defended their Red Bull Campus title in India this year and will look to make it three in a row in 2016.
There will be 25 hard-hitting, high tempo T20 matches hosted by three venues: the Puk Oval, the Ibbies Oval and Senwes Park. These matches will be played in a round robin format and the teams finishing in the top four will contest the semi-finals. The victors of those two semi-finals will slug it out on Saturday, January 30, for the right to be crowned the 2016 Varsity Cricket champions.
“In this second edition we once again look forward to unearthing new, young and exciting talent,” said Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive, Haroon Lorgat. “If we look at last season’s inaugural tournament some of the emerging stars included the likes of Ruben Claassen, Jerry Nqolo, Bjorn Fortuin and Tshepo Ntuli who have all gone on to make their mark at franchise level this season. Interestingly, three of these are spin bowlers which augurs well for the development of this particular art.
Cricket fans can also look forward to viewing a number of televised matches, which will be broadcast live. These include both semi-finals and the final.
Apart from the electrifying on-field action, spectators can expect a range of activities and giveaways. From the Samsung “Cha Cha” Slide, which the cheerleaders will perform for the crowd to mimic, to the FNB “Word Scrabble”, where individuals spelling the correct word called out by the MC will each receive a R250 eWallet from FNB. The crowd will definitely be entertained from the moment the first delivery hits the pitch.
