Border plan no look-in for Koopman menace
The Border semi-professional cricket side heads into an important match against Northerns at Buffalo Park this morning looking for a positive performance to build some momentum ahead of a difficult end to their season.
Border's three-day and oneday matches against Northerns are their last home games of the season, before they end with three tricky away encounters against Free State, Gauteng and Western Province.
“Normally you say you want to win your home games and with this being our last home game of the season we want to get the win even more so,” said Border coach Frank Plaatjes.
“It is a very important game in the sense that we have to put in a really good performance to build up some momentum ahead of our season-ending road trips.”
A strong Northerns side littered with franchise players such as Andrea Agathangelou, Alfred Mothoa, Victor Mahlangu and Tshepo Moreki is in store for the youthful Border team, but the name on the squad list that will most interest the home side is that of Gionne Koopman.
Koopman is a former Hudson Park pupil and was a Border stalwart for many years, even captaining the team during last season, before heading up to Pretoria in the off-season.
This will be his first match back at Buffalo Park and it will be very interesting to see how he performs.
“It is normally quite dangerous when a former player returns to his old team, like (Gerhardt) Abrahams in the last game for Northern Cape, he dominated us as if he had something to prove,” said Plaatjes.
“So we could have a similar situation with Koopman, so we will try to get him off the field as quickly as possible and then we can have a nice chat on the side.”
Border will also be hoping for a full weekend of cricket after their last encounter against Northern Cape was ruined by rain and with the players hav- ing had a solid few weeks of training they will want to get off to a good start.
“The players have trained well over the last two weeks, the guys are looking confident and I believe they will produce a really good showing in the two matches,” said Plaatjes.
“Hopefully we will also be strengthened on Sunday, there is a possibility of us getting two more players (from the Warriors) but that is still pending.”
The action gets under way at 10am Thursday, while Sunday's match starts at 9.30am.