Players fired up for melting-pot new season
The three witches’ words from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble,” could well be a pointer to the upcoming cricket season with exciting matches lined up in club, provincial and international play.
Amid the pandemic, cricketers now play in a “cauldron bubble” while the “fire burn” could possibly be a reference to the lights burning at day-night matches.
So, these all herald the start of a new season, and the Iinyathi squad, under top coach Paul Adams, have been working extremely hard in preparation for their debut in the Twenty20 knockout competition set (in a bubble) for Kimberley from October 4.
Two wins out of their three games could well see Iinyathi push through and advance to the play-offs.
Meanwhile, veterans cricket for players over 40 has taken off in a big way on the Border and congratulations are in order for the Border Veterans Association chair, Eugene Adams, who was advised earlier this week that he had been appointed a national selector for Veterans.
Adams has been associated with cricket for some 50 years, being a qualified scorer — he scored a great deal of club matches, provincial and franchise matchups, a number of Test matches and many, many ODIS — an umpire and now a national selector.
He also toured the UK as an umpire with Pretoria team Menlo Park on two occasions.
He joins four other selectors under convener, former Gauteng wicketkeeper-batsman Vernon Cresswell. The other selectors consist of two from the Western Cape and one from Kwazulu-natal.
The quarterfinal line-up sees Hamiltons play Alice and Old Selbornians oppose United in a double-header at Old Boys on a date to be announced.
The winners of the two games will go through to the semifinals and the final four teams and the date of the semis will be announced soon.
Earlier in September, the world’s oldest Test player, John Watkins, who represented SA in 15 Tests between 1949-50 and 1956-57, died in Durban at the age of 98 from Covid-19 complications.
This scribe was privileged to watch him in action as a member of the very strong Natal Currie Cup team of the mid1950s and in his last Test at Newlands against England in early 1957.
He was an aggressive righthanded middle-order batsman and medium-paced bowler who was one of the successes on the 1952-53 tour of Australia and New Zealand.
The team was made up of hohopers and there were calls for the tour to be cancelled, but sanity prevailed and the tour went ahead.
Through great team spirit and outstanding fielding, the team managed to draw the series 22.
Watkins scored 92 and 50 in the fifth Test at Melbourne which was won by SA by six wickets after Australia had scored 520 in their first innings.
The mantle of oldest Test player in the world now falls on Eastern Cape’s Ron Draper who represented SA in two Tests in 1950 against Australia. Draper, who resides in Gqeberha, will be 95 in December.