CBC Old Boys produced their best league performance to date at home against title rivals Alberton in what was the home side’s third fixture of the new campaign on October 27.
It was, however, not enough as they lost by three wickets.
The in-form Boksburg XI came into the encounter on the back of two consecutive wins against Duduza and KwaThema, respectively, and it would be easy to assume that they had saved their first of many big performances to come for their first real test (without disrespecting Duduza and KwaThema), which they did.
But it happened to bring their first defeat of the season by three wickets. Such is the nature of sport.
Having won the coin toss, the hosts backed themselves at home and opted to bat, and bat they did.
Led by yet another blinding showing with the bat by Mark Pearse, who smashed a resounding 82 en route to a collective 257/9 in the game’s allotted 50 overs, the home side appeared to have done enough to upstage their title rivals, who finished second on the table last season, two places ahead of Old Boys.
But Alberton’s Khaya Nyamathe had other ideas.
Old Boys produced the goods on the bowling front as well, with the trio of Rynard de Lange (bowled 10 overs), Sherwyn Pillay (delivered eight overs) and Matthew Varner (bowled 9.4 overs) finishing with 3/43, 2/36 and 2/41 respectively.
Nyamathe and co., however, dug deep and remained resilient against the odds. The batsman, who batted throughout his team’s innings, helped set up the win as he finished unbeaten on 96.
It was a performance which saw the visitors outlast Old Boys after 48.4 overs with seven wickets lost.
CBC head of cricket Willie Bernhardt said: “We lost wickets too regularly and couldn’t get momentum in the innings, fielding was good in general, but two crucial dropped catches cost us the game in the end.”
Old Boys captain Casey Arnold shared the disappointment.
“We lost by three wickets, which is quite sad because we were in a good position there. We’ve done well, it was our first loss. I thought we were going to beat Alberton, but we beat them in the T20.”
