The Boland senior Women’s Cricket Team have been crowned champions of Cricket South Africa’s inaugural Super Sixes tournament (
Click here to download the final Super Sixes Log 14.45 Kb), after finishing their final fixture at home against Northerns on Saturday ( Click here to download the Final Player Averages 15.14 Kb).
Boland won the toss and put the visitors in to bat ( Click here to download the scorecard 15.29 Kb), and had both openers back in the change-room in the first three overs, only for Mignon du Preez to put the cat among the pigeons, her superb 102 not-out in 160 balls the highlight of the Northerns innings, which had no other notablyt contribution other than J Knoetze’s opening innings of 11 runs in nine balls.
Struggling to keep batswomen with her at the crease, Du Preez played a calm innings interspersed with 12 boundaries, while watching wicket after wicket go down at the other side, with regular run-outs demonstrating the eagerness of the log-leaders’ play.
But Boland’s bowlers weren’t to be disappointed, and while Ashlyn Kilowan bowled both openers, Merecé Mackier took middle-order batters M Makhubo and D van Niekerk lbw, after which Nathanael Christiaans caught and bowled A Serwadi before bowling Marsha Letsoalo to snuff out the Northerns innings in the final over.
Their turn to bat, hosts Boland also lost openers Beth Cartledge and Yolande van der Westhuizen as they struggled to a shared total of nine runs in six overs, but Alison Hodgkinson freed her arms for a quick-fire 10 in nine balls after Cartledge had departed.
When the fall of Van der Westhuizen brought Claire Terblanche (57* in 90 balls) to the wicket, her patience in concert with Yolandi Potgieter (30 in 79 balls) and captain Sunette Loubser (28 in 26 balls) saw them take Boland to a remarkable final victory in the inaugural Super Sixes league, the team’s clean-sheets win in each of their five encounters.
Van Niekerk bowled well to remove the Boland openers, and Van der Westhuizen did well for the wickets of Hodgkinson and Alicia Smith, and the final two wickets were caught off the bowling of Knoetze, but in the end Boland won by a comfortable five wickets with seven overs to go.
For Northerns the loss meant a third-place log finish in the season, while Boland coach Noor Rhode’s team shook off the monkey from their back after having been beaten at the final step by Western Province side the two previous years.
As Rhode and his team celebrate a breathtaking series of accomplishments during the 2007/08 season drawing to a close, it is illuminating to point out that his team features only two bowlers and two batswomen in the top 10 of each discipline ( Click here to download the Player Averages 15.14 Kb), indicating the degree of teamwork which went into the season’s historic wins.
The Super Sixes provincial league log runners-up KwaZulu-Natal also finished of their season with an away win against fourth-placed Free State at the OUTsurance Oval in Bloemfontein on 8 March ( Click here to download the scorecard 15.63 Kb), after being put in to bat by the home side, and compiling a match-winning total of 225 for 9 in 50 overs, with half-centuries for N Moodley and Shandre Fritz.
Keeper D Devnarain and H Wheeler joined Trisha Chetty in not troubling the scorers, but with Free State conceding 43 extras in the innings, they made their chase all the more difficult, despite the efforts of M Loftus (3 wickets for 38 in 10 overs) and Susan Benade (2 for 30 in 10), and run-out specialist Annelie Minny.
In reply Loftus and Benade lost their wickets early, and a third-wicket partnership between Cri-Zelda Brits (95 in 137 balls) and Minny (58 in 58, including the matches’ only two sixes) appeared well on the way to an upset victory which would have seen the Bloem-based team ending the season in third place.
But it was Devnarain who instigated the coastal team’s victory with a hand in both wickets. The wheels fell off, and KZN picked up the final six wickets for 48 runs, tail-ender A Nel not able to bat, absent hurt.
In their final outing, also on 8 March 2008, Border and Gauteng were in a slug to escape relegation to next season’s second-tier Shield Competition, with Border starting the match a slim point ahead of their inland opposition ( Click here to download the scorecard 11.45 Kb), and Gauteng with a demoralizing four losses in a row, having carried their sole tournament points from the preceding qualifier series.
Gauteng chose to bat first at Bohemians in East London, an inspired choice it turned out to be, with Daleen Terblanche carrying her bat through the innings which saw 11 boundaries in her total of 113 not-out in 154 balls, opening partner Kate Thompson seeing her most of the way home with a more sedate 68 in 122 balls, before A Taai’s bowling had her caught by Pillay in the last 10 overs, and the middle order rapidly lost wickets in an attempt at quick scoring.
Settling for 224 for five, the pressure of a decent inning paid immediate dividends, with Botha bowling economically to remove A Nyiki early, and Smook inducing G Fritz to play in the air to Cortez before Terblanche and Healy combined to run opener S Pillay out.
After L Jordaan (39 in 58 balls) fell to Smook, the smell of a rout was in the air, and the Gauteng bowlers pilled on the pressure to ensure a comfortable win, Border bowled out for 183 in the penultimate over, for a 41-run victory taking Gauteng out of the danger of relegation, with a fifth-place finish and an opportunity to improve in next season’s tournament.
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