Junior Proteas cruise to the quarters
JOBURG - Junior Protea cricketer Kagiso Rabada of Fourways was pivotal in his team's win over Zimbabwe at the U19 Cricket World Cup in Dubai.
The former matric pupil of St Stithians Boys College took two wickets in a seven-wicket win to guide his team into the quarter-finals.
The Junior Proteas made it three out of three wins with another impressive all-round effort which saw an unbeaten century scored by captain, Aiden Markram. The in-form Yaseen Valli added an unbeaten half-century while Justin Dill was the pick of the bowlers, taking 4/35 in 10 overs to bundle out the opposition for 198. However, a worrying factor for South Africa would have been the 33 runs in extras that were conceded including 19 wides.
Rabada was once again at his bowling best while Cobin Bosch, Jason Smith and Greg Oldfield captured a wicket each.
Markram played a captain’s innings, scoring his 120 not out off 119 balls, including 13 fours and a six.
“I’m glad to have contributed to the team’s success in the way that I know I can,” said Markram. “I owe this performance to the awesome support the guys have been giving me, knowing that they back me. That gave me that little bit extra and today I was happy to bat through the innings.
Markram said his bowlers did really well to confine Zimbabwe to 198. “We know that track has the potential to yield a lot more runs than it did,” he said. “Justin (Dill) was just what we needed every time and KG, as Rabada is popularly known to his team-mates, gave him really good back-up and got the danger man out.”
Markam said it was exciting to reach the quarter-finals. “It’s been a steep learning curve and we’ve achieved every win as a team. Now it’s time to crank up our efforts at this next stage and hopefully we can get to the highly sought-after final.”
South Africa will have to wait for the results of the other matches to find out which team they will play in the quarter-finals.
