Yikha to lead Border U19 side at exciting Khaya Majola Week
Border U19 captain, Hudson Park High’s Nonelela Yikha is looking forward to leading his side at the upcoming Khaya Majola Week which starts in Pietermaritzburg on Monday.
It will be all-rounder Yikha’s second appearance at the national week. Last year he was Border’s vice-captain and he has been elevated to skipper this time round.
“It is always an exciting time when you get to lead a group of your peers at a prestigious Week like the Khaya Majola Week, so the excitement is there, but we are just going to take it one game at a time,” said Yikha.
a“The guys are fired up, they have been working hard, they are focused and have been following the processes, so I think this is quite an efficient group of guys and I think we will do quite well.”
Only a few players from last year’s Border U19 side have returned for this years edition, so an important part of the preparations has been for the players taking part in their second edition to make sure they have given the rest of the side an idea of what to expect.
“For the past few weeks the Khaya Majola Week is all we have been talking about, so the guys that haven’t played there yet do have a firm idea of what to expect,” explained Yikha.
“The nice thing is that almost the whole squad have played in tournaments which are up there almost as big as the national week, like the Michaelmas and Cape Schools cricket Weeks and those would have given them a good experience of the type of cricket that will be played.”
Border will face some stiff competition during the tournament which sees the best emerging cricket talent in the country on show and the players will be eager to do well against whoever they come up against.
“I think we want to show other teams that there is a lot of talent down here on the Border. We are often stereotyped as a smaller province, but we have a lot of talented players coming from here, so when we play the bigger provinces we would love to make a statement against them,” admitted Yikha.
“But all of the teams will be tough at the week, we won’t be underestimating anyone and we will just look to focus at whatever is in front of us.
“We have been doing the simple things right in the build-up and the saying goes if you do the simple things right the result will take care of itself, so the guys just have to follow the processes and the rest will take care of itself.”
The national Khaya Majola Week will conclude on Friday, December 20.
“It is always an exciting time when you get to lead a group of your peers at a prestigious Week like the Khaya Majola Week”