A star-studded Kempton Park XI arrived at CBC Old Boys grounds, played and simply conquered.
The travelling side’s captain, Johan Fourie, who was in aggressive batting form with partner-in-crime Jurie Snyman, lost the toss to his opposite Casey Arnold and Kempton were sent to bat first in the Premier League game on March 18.
Perhaps if Arnold had opted to bat first with home-pitch advantage, the outcome would’ve probably been different and possibly less damaging because what would follow was a cricketing clinic by the visitors which would yield a huge 134-run win.
Compromised by a few bodies in the treatment room, former CBC boy and batting star Wesley Coulentianos opened the batting with Fourie, whose normal entry is at seven.
Coulentianos, however, endured an unpleasant return to the club he spent multiple years at when his back was seen just after eight runs.
A dismissal of this magnitude at such an early stage is likely to affect the flow of a cricket match but Old Boys’ dream start was quickly turned into a nightmare with the introduction to proceedings of man-of-the-moment Snyman.
Rubbing-off of each other, Snyman and his skipper smashed everything thrown at them and ran the Old Boys fielders rugged as they exploited every space on the pitch.
Snyman, who departed before his captain, piled 123 on the board off 84 balls before Fourie followed after an innings of 110 off 155 deliveries.
A pleased Fourie said: “Well I lost the toss to CBC and they sent us to bat first. It was a bit difficult in the first five to 10 overs with their pitch before we got going.
“It was my first time opening the batting due to a lot of injuries. I normally come in at seven but I enjoyed it a lot.”
All of CBC’s Craig Parker, Jayden Snyman, Mpho Nzimande, Willie Bernhardt, Keith Bennie, Cameron Tyrone and their captain conceded 29, 43, 55, 51, 41, 28 and 33 runs respectively courtesy of the blinding partnership by the Kempton duo.
Only Snyman took more than a single wicket with 2/43, including a single maiden in nine overs of bowling.
With the hosts going through a stage of restoring their confidence coming into the match, Kempton’s blitzkrieg was unlikely going to be emulated by their hosts and the visitors’ bowlers put the result beyond doubt when they combined to remove the hosts for 160.
CBC skipper, Arnold, said: “I’m very happy with the way the boys played, they’re (Kempton) a really good team and they just performed a lot better than us, probably the best team in the league, one of the best in the province and the country club-wise.
“The boys tried their best, I’m very happy with the boys, I think we really stood firm. They played their best and we did our best and they were just better than us.
“We have a long way to go to catch a team like Kempton and we’re well aware of that but we’re on the right track.” – @SabeloBoksburg
