It’s fine opening start for Border

IT WAS a solid start to the season for the Border cricket team as they came away from their opening matches of the season in the Sunfoil Three-Day Cup and CSA Provincial One-Day Cup with a draw and a win respectively over Northerns this past weekend.

Playing against defending three-day champs in the Highveld Border impressed drawing the three-day encounter on Saturday and then followed that up with a solid four-wicket win in the one-dayer on Sunday.

“I was very happy with the all-round performance of the team against Northerns,” said Border coach Frank Plaatjes.

“We still have a lot of work to do if we really want to challenge for honours but I think we are on the right path.”

In the three-day match Border’s bowlers struggled, taking just 12 wickets over Northerns two innings, with them scoring 372/8 and 284/4 declared.

On the batting front however Border came to the party with Marco Marais leading the charge as he notched up his third first-class century and highest ever score of 128.

He was backed up well by Jonker (50), Calana (47) and captain Gionne Koopman (44) in the first innings with Border all out for 362 and then reached 106/3 in the second innings when the draw was called with Koopman (58) and Marais (23) both unbeaten.

“It was a fantastic innings to watch, Marco showed a lot of maturity and I think it is just a question of when he will move up to play at a higher level,” said Plaatjes.

In the one-day match Northerns again batted first, scoring 274/6, with Clayton Bosch the best Border bowler claiming 3/60.

The Border batsmen then once again impressed with opener Gerhardt Abrahams hitting 88, Marais 55 and Jonker a quickfire 39-ball 67 to take the team home with 13 balls to spare.

“We were a bit under pressure after losing those three early wickets, but the crucial partnership was the one between Gerhardt and Marco, that got us right back into the match and then Jonker just came in and finished it off for us with a superb innings which was awesome to see,” said Plaatjes.

Border will now gear up for their next two games against Western Province to be played at Buffalo Park from next week Thursday.