by Lutho Mtongana | Mar 17, 2015 | Sport
Croxley Wits Cricket Club lost by two wickets in their league match against Randburg Cricket Club last Sunday.
The teams were evenly matched but Randburg managed to limit Wits’ total to 184.
Randburg coach, Kurt Human said his team’s performance went according to plan. “We wanted to come in here and try and restrict them … what we wanted was to bowl first and get four wickets down earlier on,” he said.
Tiro Madiseng, Randburg captain added, “Patience was the key for us. We’re hoping to get as close as possible to the top because they bit us the first time.”
Wits captain Nono Pongolo said their batting was not what they had hoped it would be, “we let ourselves down with the bat, losing soft wickets”.
The second half of the match saw Wits bowling soft balls giving Randburg the chance to score easy runs.
“Thanks to the bowlers we got a decent score that gave us a fighting chance. We fought well, but they wanted it more in the end,”
After a short break Randburg lost 4 wickets in quick succession, slowing their pace.
Even though Wits managed to push a little more, the team was a little too late when Randburg finished the game with a total of 191-8.
“We had a couple of half chances we did not hold on to, if we held on to those two or three chances we could have had three to five wickets down by now,” said player-coach Neil Levenson said.
“Thanks to the bowlers we got a decent score that gave us a fighting chance. We fought well, but they (Randburg) wanted it more in the end,” Pongolo said.
Even though Randburg managed to score 13 more points in the league for winning the game, Wits still remains in second place.
Wits still has two more games to play until the Gauteng Premier league is over.
by Lutho Mtongana | Mar 13, 2015 | Sport
WICKET DOWN: All-rounder Imeraan Fredricks leaves the field after only batting a few runs. Photo: Lutho Mtongana
Wits University is hoping to walk away with a comprehensive win against Randburg Cricket Club this Sunday in a time format game at home.
Croxley Wits Cricket is currently second on the Gauteng Premier league table with Old Parktonian Cricket Club in top spot. Randburg is currently in 6th place.
Wits will be relying on their bowling and fielding strength and hoping to improve on their batting performance in this weekend’s game.
Player-coach Neil Levenson, a former Randburg head coach, says he knows that Randburg has a good bowling unit with experienced players but says their batting is weak and he hopes his team will capitalise on this.
The plan is to “put them under pressure by leading with a good score”, Levenson said.
Wits batsman Nono Pongolo said they want to “carry on batting well. “Posting big scores so that we can have a chance of bowling them twice.”
But, Pongolo said, Wits lacks a strong batting partnership as they are still a young team. He believes though that if they carry on batting well, combined with their strong bowling unit, Wits will be “difficult to beat”.
Levenson added that he had a good relationship with Randburg players and when he was with them cricket was different, “it was about developing their players … They are an experienced team now.”
Last Sunday the team played their strongest opposition in Dobsonville Cricket Club and drew the match after running out of time.
The premier league is played in a time format with two innings a day and 60 overs. In the first innings there are 10 wickets and the second, five. Wits cricket have three games left.
Wits has played 7 games since the league started, won three, lost two and drew 2. They have three games in hand before the league finishes at the end of March.
