United get their third league win
Fresh off a pulverising of Duduza the Sunday before, captain Justin Gamble and his United side travelled to KwaThema’s Prince Thethe Oval where there is always a case of unpredictability.
Brakpan-based United Cricket Club’s Premier League XI picked up their third win out of four matches in the Eastern Premier League competition on November 4.
Justin Gamble lost the morning coin toss and was put into bat by his opposite number.
Despite finding themselves four wickets down with 79 runs on the board, Gamble would take charge of the situation.
His 74 runs from 75 deliveries were vital in ensuring that his team would eventually put together a score of 312 in 49.5 overs.
The skipper formed a 103-run partnership with veteran Brendan Frost (46 runs from 58 balls) in the middle order before he was caught out.
Frost, who is the head groundsman at Willowmoore Park, then partnered with Branden Grutter (42 runs from 38 deliveries) to stretch the score even further.
Following theirs and a few more dismissals, number nine batsman Shane Wallace put his foot down and played a swashbuckling innings of 55 runs not out at the end of the innings to take his team well over 300 runs.
With the ball, United proved too powerful for their hosts and wrapped up KwaThema relatively simply for 87 runs in just 20.1 overs.
Also read: Red hot United too good for Duduza at home
Young bowler Simphiwe Mbatha ran the show with the cherry, bagging a sublime five-wicket haul with excellent bowling figures of 5/26 in six overs to ensure a hefty 226-run win for the team from Brakpan.
“It was a really difficult pitch to bat on with the bounce being very inconsistent,” said the United captain.
“At one stage, after a fairly shaky start with the bat, we were looking at 200 as a good score.
“To be able to get 312 was a really good effort from the guys.
“We knew that we just had to bowl in good areas and scoring would be very difficult for KwaThema.
“Our bowlers did just that and picked up regular wickets to give us a good, bonus point win.
“Simphiwe was great in getting his first fifer for the club.”
In other senior Sunday results for United Cricket Club, the club’s Premier Reserve XI also played KwaThema, but at Hosking Park’s A-Field.
United’s second XI also batted first and surpassed the 300-run mark in their batting innings, scoring 321/6 in their 50 overs.
Dillan Alberts scored a terrific century (101 runs) while Anthony Kruger fell short of a ton by seven runs.
Shane Speed, 65 runs not out, also played a noteworthy knock. With the ball United bowled out their visitors for 199 runs in 40.3 overs to secure a 122-run win. Kruger was again in the thick of things, this time with the leather, as he bagged statistics of 4/31 in 7.3 overs.
The club’s Directors League side made it a perfect, winning Sunday for United as they defeated Vosloorus by 42 runs.
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