EP’s Moore puts up his hand again
Eastern Province coach Piet Botha believes the recent performances by Eddie Moore will not go unnoticed at national level as the young batsman continues to put his hand up in important situations.
This comes on the back of a splendid 227 not out off 298 balls which set up a convincing victory of an innings and 110 runs over Gauteng in Johannesburg in their CSA 3-Day challenge match last week.
Asked if Moore deserved to be selected at national level, Botha said: “He has scored well over 1,000 first-class runs this season [mostly at franchise level] and that cannot be ignored. I am 100% sure he is slowly forcing his way in there.
“Our goal as a team is always to look after our first innings well, so apart from the double hundred, which was obviously an amazing achievement, there were also some good partnerships that helped us to get a good first innings score which put them under pressure immediately.”
Botha’s side were ruthless against their hosts, as they whittled the Gauteng side out for 50 runs in their first innings, after posting a mammoth 436 for nine wickets in their first innings.
Another outstanding performance came with the ball, as Glenton Stuurman picked up a five-four in each innings to end the match with figures of 10 wickets for 64 runs in 30 overs.
They followed up that crushing defeat with a much tighter 20-run victory in the Provincial One-Day Challenge match, where Stuurman again starred with the ball, taking one wicket while only conceding seven runs in his 10-over spell, including five maidens.
“It was an important weekend for us with Gauteng being ahead of us on the log. We were determined to put out a good performance,” Botha said.
“Thanks to some outstanding batting and bowling performances, we managed to pull off the win. We are going to Oudtshoorn next, which is very different.”