SA A beat Proteas, as Africa Cup trophy beckons

Cricket
For Namibia, their first fifty by Piers L'Estrange could not prevent Zimbabwe from racing to a nine-wicket win.
Andrew Poolman
  • 9 Hours Ago
The cup final and bronze final of the Nedbank Africa Cup veterans cricket tournament for players of 50 and older will today round of a successfully hosted event in Windhoek.

Today’s two matches will be a rematch of the same already-determined opponents that completed their last pool fixtures yesterday.

The South African A side under former Springbok rugby fullback Russell Bennett underlined their status as a dangerous underdog when they finished top of the log standings – beating the SA Proteas by 28 runs ath the United field in Olympia.

Meanwhile at Wanderers, Zimbabwe beat Namibia by nine wickets in the clash of wooden spoon contenders, who will have a rematch today with the bronze medal finish up for grabs.

The SA A side’s Wiaan Smit continued his unstoppable form in this tournament with another influential batting performance as opener, scoring 98 off 96 balls against his compatriots. After hitting 16 fours and two sixes, he was finally caught behind the stumps just two runs short of a second century in the tournament.

In support of Smit, André Steyn (37 off 59), Shawn Schaper (24 not out off 39) and captain Bennett (41 off 29 balls, 5x4 1x6) took the A side to a handy total of 267 for seven, boosted by 33 wides conceded by the opposition bowlers.

Con Purchase was the pick of the Proteas bowlers, completing his nine overs with 2/27, conceding only 3.0 per over.

The SA A side made breakthroughs at the right times to break the Proteas batting momentum, despite contributions of Russell Krug (40 off 54 balls), Munier Holiday (53 off 75 balls, 5x4) and captain Mario Solomons (56 off 48 balls, 1x4 3x6). The Proteas were restricted to 239/8 as they fell well short of maintaining a late challenge.

The all-round contribution of André Steyn, who took 1/7 in four overs, handed him the player of the match award ahead of Wiaan Smit, who took the honours in the previous two matches and again excelled as a bowler too, conceding only 0/31 in nine overs.

In three innings, Smit has plundered 287 runs so far (average 143.5) – by far the leading batsman, with the nearest Murray Goodwin of Zimbabwe (138 runs).



Zimbabwe overpowers hosts

At Wanderers, Namibia captain Dawie Hartzenberg won the toss and elected to bat first.

Opener Leon Fleming (38 off 35 balls) had his moments hitting four fours and two sixes, before number three Piers L’Estrange underlined his stalwart credentials, scoring Namibia’s first fifty in the tournament.

L’Estrange was bowled by Darshan Vaghmaria for 50 off 72 balls, after hitting eight fours.

Zimbabwe conceded 26 wides (39 extras), while Namibia managed to stretch their total to 194 all out in 43.2 overs.

However, despite Zimbabwe losing their captain and opener Darrell Goodwin for just 5 (lbw bowled Ferdi Coetzee), their next pair of batsmen took full control.

Murray Goodwin (114 not out off just 60 balls) hit 17 fours and four sixes, while James Whyte (70 not out off 37 balls) also helped ensure the crushing win by nine wickets after only 18.1 overs.