KES makes it two from two, while Kind inspires Grey College to win
King Edward VII School (KES) recorded a second victory in as many matches at the 2024 edition of the Oppenheimer Michaelmas Cricket Week when they handed St Charles a whopping 138-run defeat in Pietermaritzburg on Monday. Their win came courtesy of half-centuries from Luke Clark and Khwezi Nyamathe.
A short distance away, Kristian Kind laid a solid foundation for Grey College, who beat Jeppe High School for Boys by four wickets at Collegians.
Clark and Nyamathe shared a match-winning 90-run second-wicket partnership as they took down Saints, who had scored an impressive win over Grey College the previous day. Clark, who top-scored for KES with 28 runs in their victory over Hilton on Sunday, struck nine fours and a six on his way to 62 off 63 balls.
Nyamathe was the foil to Clark’s aggressive stroke play. The number four batsman accumulated 52 runs from 113 deliveries in a patient innings that featured just three fours. The duo joined forces in the fifth over after KES had lost opener Tiago Dias.
The Clark-Nyamathe partnership spanned 14.5 overs and was broken when Clark was run out in the 20th over. Things looked a little grim for the Johannesburg school when Troy Gordon was dismissed for a five-ball duck nine deliveries later. However, the trio of Callum Ritchie, Zieg Roos, and Wade McQuinn prevented a middle-order collapse and contributed 78 runs between them.
Marcell Wellmann delivered a brilliant four-over spell at the death for St Charles. The left-arm spinner bagged four wickets for 33 runs between the 43rd and 49th overs to help restrict KES to what looked like a gettable total. Still, the Saints’ skipper came in for some stick, finishing with four wickets for 55 runs from his seven overs.
St Charles’ openers, Connor Riley and Cian Fortman, did a good job in seeing off the new ball, but not much followed after their 27-run stand in 9.1 overs was ended, with the home side’s top order contributing little. Saints never recovered from that collapse and stumbled their way to 103 all out.
The St Charles’ batting was under the pump so much that only Stefan Veldsman, with 22, made it out of the teens. Three more batsmen – Riley, Fortman, and Brendan Sunguro, the hero of their win on Sunday over Grey College – reached double figures, but they didn’t do much more.
Wade McQuinn caused the Saints’ batsmen problems and was the most successful of the KES bowlers, taking two wickets for seven runs in four overs. Christian Sabela, Fayaaz Vawda, and Callum Ritchie also bagged a brace of wickets each as they bowled their side to victory.
At Collegians, Grey College made light work of the target set for them by Jeppe. The boys from Bloemfontein bounced back from their five-wicket loss to St Charles with a four-wicket victory over the Kensington school.
Grey successfully chased Jeppe’s 175 all out, which had been achieved in 43.1 overs. It took Grey 41.1 overs to reach 176/6.
Kristian Kind stroked eight fours and blasted two sixes on his way to a well-played 68 off 86 deliveries. He was in great touch and his maximums matched the total of the entire Jeppe batting lineup. The opener was also the dominant contributor in a 66-run opening stand with Cullen Marais, who added 10 runs to his team’s cause.
Kind’s innings was enough to secure the boys from Bloemfontein a victory because of Jeppe’s middling score. Unlike Jeppe, who lost wickets in clumps, Grey College was able to string together partnerships that did enough to keep their run chase on course. Henru De Wet and Ruben Maree contributed 44 runs between them, while Pieter Smit (13) and Dale Williams (15) failed to settle in.
Sipho Potsane and Shreshth Kumar bagged a brace of wickets each for Jeppe, but neither could stop the Grey College train. Potsane finished with a tidy two for 25 from 10 overs, while Kumar bowled tightly, too, and picked up two for 29 in eight.
Earlier in the day, the Grey College bowlers made good use of the morning conditions to send Jeppe’s top three batsmen packing for only 19 runs.
Ryan Young (35) top-scored for Jeppe in their match against the CSA Hub XI, with a solid half-century on Sunday, and while there was no individual milestone for him this time around, he battled hard to give his side a fighting chance, sharing in a 67-run partnership with Aiden Reyneke, who top-scored for Jeppe with 39.
However, Jeppe needed more than two scores in the thirties. Keegan Caxeiro and Potsane made it to 20, but there was nothing else to write home about.
Henru De Wet was the pick of the Grey College, claiming three wickets for 16 runs in 5.1 overs. Darion Rabie and Sicelo Matayi picked up two wickets apiece, while Otto Krause and Daniel Hattingh removed a batsman each.
Summarised Scorecards
KES 241/10 (Luke Clark 62, Khwezi Nyamathe 52; Marcell Wellmann 4/55) St Charles 103/10 (Stefan Veldsman 22; Wade McQuinn 2/7, Christian Sabela 2/10) KES XI won by 138 runs.
Jeppe 175/10 (Aiden Reyneke 39, Ryan Young 35; Henru De Wet 3/16) Grey College 176/6 (Kristian Kind 68, Henru De Wet 24; Sipho Potsane 2/25, Shreshth Kumar 2/29) Grey College won by five wickets.
