Northerns go top of the league after Alberton win

Benoni Northerns Cricket Club’s (BNCC) Premier League One XI climbed to the top of the Eastern Premier League One table with victory over a strong Alberton Cricket Club XI at Northern Areas on February 18.

Heading into the match, Alberton had a four-point lead over their weekend opponents, but soon found themselves one point behind BNCC after a five-wicket, bonus point win from the Benonians.

This weekend saw the start of the split Premier League One and Premier League Two competitions where the top eight Premier League teams battle it out in Premier League One and the bottom four teams play the top four Promotion League sides (including BNCC’s Promotion League XI) in Premier League Two.

On Sunday, BNCC’s Premier League One skipper Kurt Francis won the morning coin toss and elected to bowl first.

Opening bowler Lance Humphrey got into the mix with two early wickets, but Alberton’s opening batsman AD Gagiano was aggressive from the onset, scoring at a rapid rate (47 runs from 38 balls) before he was bowled out by Stefano di Bartolomeo with the score 65/3.

A 38-run partnership between Matthew Arnold and Juanre Potgieter then followed before the Easterns semi-professional Arnold was removed for 32 runs.

His and Potgieter’s (47 runs) dismissals were the catalyst for a major batting collapse from Alberton.

Veteran Mark Robey pulled the strings in the middle of the innings with excellent slow bowling.

His figures of 4/28 in 8.5 overs helped BNCC restrict the Alberton team to under 200 runs, bowled out for 187 runs in 42.2 overs.

With the bat, Northerns were well aware that they would need to go about their business with patience, particularly as Alberton possess possibly the strongest fast bowling contingent in the league.

It was the captain, Francis who starred in the batting innings.

Opener Ernest Kemm’s calm 36 runs from 75 balls along with contributions from Rian van der Merwe and Rhenier Jordaan (25 runs each) helped keep the innings moving along until the skipper took to the crease and played a captain’s knock of note.

He blitzed a quickfire 71 not out (five fours and six sixes) from 40 balls in 37.4 overs to see his team defeat the highly rated Alberton for the second time in the 2017/2018 season.

“We knew Alberton was always going to come out hard and that they did,” said Francis.

“We definitely did not start the way we planned, but again we showed the fight we have within us by restricting them to under 200.

“With the bat we again lost wickets in clumps, but with our strength in depth, we always knew we had it under control.

“It was a great result, but there is still a long way to go as we try to hold onto our number one spot.”

The BNCC Premier League Two side got to grips with life in the new league with a comfortable eight-wicket win over Bedfordview.

Unbeaten half-centuries from young WP Myburgh (51 not out) and Nic Lockyer (50 not out) got the team over the line after they bowled out their visitors for 156 runs in 47.5 overs.

Before that the experienced Andrew Macfarlane bagged impressive figures of 4/20 in nine overs with the ball while Sifiso Shabangu achieved statistics of 2/26 in 6.5 overs.

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