Emotional Salem bring it home
Zimmerman’s 160 not out denies Southwell in tense final
SALEM are the new Kenrich Pineapple Cricket Tournament champions after beating Southwell in the final match at the Port Alfred Country Club last Saturday.
On a hot, breezy morning, the match started with Southwell winning the toss and electing to bat first.
Among the match highlights for Southwell, James Stirk scored 92 runs and Dave Kruger 53.
Salem’s Leard King took six wickets for 36 runs, and by the end of their innings, Southwell had scored 205 for seven.
In their innings, Salem batted well with an outstanding effort by Nick Zimmerman. Salem scored an undefeated 160 in their innings of 207 runs for the loss of nine wickets, winning the match by one wicket.
Southwell’s Adrian Reed took three wickets for 50 runs.
The winning team was jubilant, with
captain Simon Amm, summing it up: “Leard King with the trophy and Nick Zimmerman’s emotions after his hundred says it all. It’s been a long time coming, 10 years in fact. We wanted to win it for the Kings [family] because of much they have done for the Salem Club,” said Amm, referring to the death of popular local cricket player, Cuan King, last week.
The Kings are a well-known cricketing family in Salem. Cuan, who died of cancer last Tuesday, was captain of the Salem team 10 years ago when Salem last won the Pineapple Cricket Tournament.
Leard took a few days off to be with his family, but continued to play because that is what his father would have wanted.
“That was why Leard accepted the trophy on behalf of the Salem team,” said Amm. We are just extremely grateful everything fell into place and that we could play great cricket with great mates against great opponents.”
At the final prize-giving, president of the Pineapple Cricket Tournament, Walter Biggs, announced the winner and former president, Barry Purdon handed the tournament trophy to Leard King.
Other prizes went to top performers Chris van der Meulen for the highest score (121) and most wicket-keeper victims, Zakes Simanga for the most sixes (13) and the most runs in boundaries (202), James Stirk for the highest batting average in section A (61.6) Peter Gradwell for most wickets in the tournament (13) and best performance player in his first tournament, Ati Kota for most wickets in A section (17), Cliff Savage for best wicket-keeper, Taylor Ntukela – most promising cricketer, JC Pittaway – best fielder, Fred Rubbidge – best slow bowler, Buster Bretherton – best all-rounder, Andrew Marshall – most deserving cricketer over-40, Rod Weeks – most deserving cricketer over 55, Nicholas Zimmermanm for best single performance in final, Walter Biggs for person doing most for cricket, and Barry Smith for umpiring services. Biggs thanked the sponsors, including Kenrich Motors and the other main sponsor, Cricket SA.
“This tournament is not possible without money. It costs us in the vicinity of R225 000 to run the tournament, and we could not do it without our sponsors,” he said.
Biggs also thanked Clive Pearson for the use of the Port Alfred High School fields and the Ski-boat Club for providing meals.
Other sponsors are Russell and Co, Department of Sport and Recreation Eastern Cape, Tractor World, Raider Agencies, Nova Feeds, Distel, Verbac, PicknPay, BUCO, Provident Animal Health, Harcourts, Inso Aluminium, I Hire, De Jager Lawdon, Overberg, Rosehill and Nemato Spar, SA Breweries, Coca-Cola, Eastcape Pools, Creta Plumbing, Frontier Bonsmaras, Mooifontein Quarries, Multi-Security ACS360, Sky Alarms and Serenity Day Spa.
Several of the former Pineapple Cricket tournament presidents attended the event including Barry Purdon who handed out the prizes, Ross Purdon, Rex Amm, Colin Stirk and Justin Stirk.