Tuks too strong for Benoni Northerns at Willowmoore Park
It was just a bridge too far for the Eastern Premier League winners.
The dream of playing as the Titans franchise representative in Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) National Club Championship came to an end on March 23 for Benoni Northerns Cricket Club’s (BNCC) Premier XI after they went down by 43 runs to a strong University of Pretoria (Tuks) XI in a play-off semi-final at Willowmoore Park’s main oval.
BNCC won the play-off final for the Eastern Premier League title against Alberton on March 17 and were confident that they could at least give the Tuks side a good run for their money.
BNCC skipper Kurt Francis won the morning coin toss and elected to bowl first.
His bowlers did well to keep the strong Tuks batting order below 250 runs in their 50-over innings, with the visiting side notching up 240/7.
Stefano di Bartolomeo was the key figure with the ball, claiming figures of 4/48 in 10 overs.
With the bat, the Benonians were in trouble after a number of early wickets fell and they found themselves 10/4 at one stage.
Tuks’ opening fast bowler Ruben Trumpelmann caused numerous problems for the BNCC top order with an incredible spell on a flat wicket, bagging figures of 2/7 in six overs (including four maidens).
Francis and Aron Visser steadied the ship after that with the former looking good and positive on 33 runs from 30 deliveries before he was caught out.
Visser fought on, scoring 87 runs from 98 balls before he was caught out too.
Kundai Matigimu, 33 runs off the same number of balls, also tried to fight on, but it was not enough as BNCC were all out for 197 in 44 overs.
On Sunday, Tuks proved the big gulf in class between the varsity and club sides when they smashed the Limpopo league winners Nkowankowa Cricket Club by nine wickets to win the play-off final.
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