England too strong for SA Under-19s

England beat South Africa by 36 runs on the DLS method in their U-19 Cricket World Cup match in Potchefstroom yesterday.

Late afternoon rain forced the players from the field with England on 137/2 chasing 231 for victory with 21.3 overs to be bowled.

Though they had lost two wickets and still needed close to 100 runs to win when the rain arrived, England were well set with batters Hamza Shaikh (9) and Noah Thain (63) at the crease.

Earlier captain Ben McKinney had made an impressive 48 before being bowled by Romashan Pillay. The other wicket to fall was that of fellow opener Jaydn Denly for one.

Earlier the South Africans, who’d beaten the West Indies in their opening game last week, had struggled to get to 230 all out in the final over of their innings.

While Steve Stolk (64 off 55) and Lhuan-dre Pretorius (25 off 29) had got their team off to something of a flier, once they fell, together with number three batter David Teeger, for a duck, things fell apart for the host nation.

Richard Seletswane tried hard to steady the ship with a solid 33 off 53 balls, and while he was supported by lower order batter Dewan Marais (42 off 39) there was just not enough of a contribution by the other batters to put any pressure on England.

Contributions of 13, 17, 18 and 12 by the bowlers Juan James, Tristan Luus, Nqobani Mokuena and Kwena Mphaka respectively helped the South Africans post a total over 200 runs.

England, who beat Scotland in their opening match in Pool B, remain top of the points table, while South Africa are second, but will have to beat Scotland in their next game on Saturday to stand a chance of progressing. England face the West Indies on Friday.