By GARY LEMKE
Team SA confirmed why they are considered strong gold medal favourites to win the men’s cricket competition at the African Games when they trounced Ghana in their Group A opener on Sunday.
Winning the toss and electing to get to know the batting conditions at the Achimota Cricket Oval in Accra, Team SA surged to an impressive 207 for 2 in their 20 overs. In reply the hosts were restricted to 103-7 as Team SA recorded a resounding 134-run win.
Team SA lost their first wicket with the score on 11 when Maahir Joseph was caught, but they were already showing their intent in punishing the bowlers. Captain George van Heerden joined Heinrigh Pieterse in the second over and when he departed, in the unusual fashion of hit wicket, the pair had pout on 106 runs in 11.2 overs.
Lehan Botha then came to the middle and he and Van Heerden put 120 runs on in only 7.4 overs. To put it another way, a partnership of 120 off 46 balls.
Van Heerden bludgeoned his way to an unbeaten 107 off 57 balls, with eight fours and seven sixes, while Botha hurried to 46 off 25 balls with five fours and three sixes.
Team SA couldn’t have been more convincing with the bat. They racked up their total of 237-2 at a rate of 11.85 runs to the over, before making their way through the Ghana innings.
For Ghana, opener James Vifah (41 off 25 balls) staged a brave, but lonely battle, before he was bowled by Jason Raubenheimer. Kelvin Awala was the only other Ghanaian to reach double figures.
Seven Team SA bowlers got the chance to turn their arms over with both Jesse Prodehl and Raubenheimer taking two wickets, while Botha and Pieterse also got in the wickets column.
It was a thoroughly convincing and impressive performance by Team SA who are back in action on Monday against Kenya.
“I’m obviously ecstatic for the boys to start with a win like that. I was well supported throughout my knock by the batsmen coming in and to only lose two wickets was brilliant. We set it up very nicely to explode at the end,” said Van Heerden, who becomes the first player to score a century at an African Games. The sport is making its debut in 2024.
Commenting on the conditions, he said: They say it’s 33 degrees but it feels like 50 degrees.But we had a good training week and are acclimatising. Bowling was quite tough and we felt it in the field a bit. The crowd was awesome though and overall it was just a great performance.”
Team SA remained on 93 medals at the completion of Sunday’s programme. This comprised 25 gold, 30 silver and 38 bronze, and left them on third on the overall medals table.
This is already a marked improvement on their performance at the 2019 Games in Morocco, where they ended fourth on the medals table with 86 medals.
Photo by Roger Sedres in Accra
