Selborne relish opportunity to showcase cricket talent

Selborne College’s master in charge of cricket, Murray Spence, said the first team’s experience at the Cape Schools Cricket week, hosted by South African College Schools, was a good learning experience. 

After months practising in the nets, and inter-squad games and delays coming with the Covid-19 waves, Selborne’s young cricketers finally got to play some competitive cricket in Cape Town during the festival from October 6-9.

The festival saw more than 12 schools, with three from the Border region, competing.

Selborne were joined by Queens College and Dale College.

Adding to the festivities were Grey, Pearson, Graeme, Wynberg Boys’, Rondebosch, Paarl Boys, Paul Roos, Paarl Gimnasium and hosts Sacs. 

The East London school played four matches, two declaration and as many 50 over games.

In the declaration matches, they lost by 204 runs to Rondebosch and drew against Paarl Gimnasium.

In their first 50 over match, they had a no result with Sacs, with rain-stopping play, and then lost by 79 runs to Wynberg in their final game.

There were standout performances from bowlers Tiaan Jacobs and Tyler Stagg and with the bat Kyle van Wyk, Ben van der Merwe and Adam du Plessis had brilliant knocks. 

Results aside, Murray, who is also Selborne’s sports administrator, was pleased to see the boys showcasing their skills in the Western Cape. 

“It’s always nice to be part of the Cape Schools Cricket week which has some of the top cricket schools getting together.

“Especially after a long 18 months where we had little sport.

“It was really nice to travel to Cape Town and to showcase our skills at a top cricket festival,” said Spence. 

“We had a balanced team of experience, we had our matrics playing and we took a few young cricketers into the first team so they know what it’s like to play at the top level. 

“Unfortunately, we didn’t really get the results we wanted, and the weather on the one day didn’t play its part; having rained out a game.

“It was a good learning experience for our cricketers to be part of the festival. 

“We had some brilliant individual performances.

“At the end of the day, we’re happy that some school sports is allowed; even better we had the opportunity to travel to Cape Town and play against the best cricketing schools in the country,” Spence said. 

Selborne will host the festival as part of their 150th celebrations in 2022.

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