Nathanael is Boland’s Centurion

Nathanael Christiaans gives the ball plenty of flight during her 100th first-class match for Boland during the weekend, taking two wickets in her team’s demolition of Free State in Kraaifontein. Picture courtesy Liam McAvoy

Boland made sure to confirm their top-of-the-log position in the second round of the premier Super Sixes competition against the Free State in Kraaifontein over the weekend, when they blew the visitors away in a bonus-point six-wicket victory to keep their number 1 Super Sixes competition spot.

But another significant event was played out the same match, when Nathanael Christiaans turned out in her 100th first-class match for Boland. "To play a hundredth cap for your province," Christiaans told gsport on Wednesday, "It’s an amazing feeling.

A career best of 6 for 20 recorded against Eastern Province in 2001, Christiaans attributes her impressive figures to a time when women cricketers weren’t used to facing spin bowling. "In the beginning, there wasn’t a lot of women spinners in the country.

"So batswomen normally focussed on fast bowling, and I’m a spinner, that could have been a reason for my taking wickets. And then, coach Noor Rhode assisting me in coaching me in approaching games, approaching different types of batswomen, and that."

The modest right-arm off-spinner’s talent was on show in Kraaifontein to the detriment of Free State on Saturday, when her two wickets in 5.2 overs gave an indication of her career record of 142 wickets at an average of 15.10 and an economy of 3.18.

Also in the 2007 Mutual & Federal Cricket Annual for having the distinction of taking five catches in a match, Christiaans and her Boland colleagues made the Free State side sweat out a 110 all-out total in the 48th over, after they won the toss and decided to bat.

A regular performer, S Loubser was the home side’s most successful bowler on the day, her bowling accounting for the first wicket and her catching for the second, her day’s figures 3 for 26 in ten overs.

For the Free State innings, S Benade top-scored with a relatively quick 29 in 40 balls, a lower-order implosion costing five wickets for the addition of a mere nine runs, with no. 5 batswoman D Weatherall’s patient 25 in 79 balls the final wicket of the day, appropriately taken by Christiaans.

In reply Boland made a quick meal of it, their winning total of 113 coming in the 35th over, with opener Y van der Westhuizen’s stand of 51 the main contributor of the day, which was boosted by 23 extras care of the Free State side.