Representing the region at club champs
A send-off function was held on Tuesday, April 7, for the Benoni Northerns Cricket Club’s Premier XI, who will be representing the Eastern Cricket Union at the 2015 Momentum National Club Championships, in Pretoria.
The players received their club ties from members of the Benoni Northerns executive committee.
Overall club chairman Craig Wittstock congratulated the team on their successful Eastern Premier League campaign and wished them well ahead of the country’s elite club cricket tournament, which starts on Wednesday, April 22 and concludes on Monday, April 27.
He said that the team was not representing just the club, but Benoni and Easterns as a whole.
Skipper Kurt Francis and his BNCC team will be hoping to improve on the two wins of the five matches they played when they first made an appearance at the National Club Championships, in 2013.
The team’s fixtures were made available this week.
Playing in Section Two of the tournament, Northerns will feel that they have been dealt a good hand after avoiding some of the strong university teams, including last year’s champions, Assupol Tuks, who feature in Section One.
Francis’s men will get proceedings underway at the Irene Villagers Oval on Wednesday, April 22, when they play United Cricket Club East London (Border), followed by a trip to Laudium the next day, where they will square up against the Gauteng winners, University of Johannesburg (UJ).
BNCC will then meet KwaZulu-Natal’s champions, Crusaders Cricket Club, on Friday, April 24, at Sinovich Park, followed by a return to Irene Villagers Oval for a clash with Erdinger Durbanville Cricket Club, on Saturday, April 25.
The team will play their last match of the section on Sunday, April 26, at the same venue, when they play South Western Districts Champions, Union Stars Cricket Club.
Monday, April 27, will see the top team from both sections facing each other in the final at the TUT Oval.
