Seyibokwe shows his class
Warriors batsman hits maiden century as Shamsi takes 7/93
A COLLEGIATE High pupil has reached the top step of the podium and now she looks to take on the world when she represents South Africa as part of the country’s water polo team next month.
The Weekend Post Let’s Play Sports star of the month award for February goes to Meghan Maartens, 17.
The grade 11 pupil will travel to Odense, Denmark, with the national team to participate in the EU Nations Cup from April 1 to 3.
She recently returned from Durban, where she was part of the U17 team which took part in the Cana Zone IV water polo championships.
Maartens, along with Casey McLeavy and Ashleigh Vaughan, will make the trip as they look to bring back some silverware from the three-day tournament.
Maartens started playing in 2012 in the U13 category, making her debut in the EP team. “I just love the vibe of the various teams we come up against. I also love that water polo is a fast and intense sport,” she said.
From representing EP in the U13 A team, she progressed through the various age groups to U16 as well as the U18 Currie Cup and Currie Cup Colts teams.
“To represent EP is honestly the most fun of the year. It is an awesome achievement as only a limited number of people can say they’ve represented their province for this discipline,” she said.
The current Collegiate first XI goalkeeper has not had it easy, though.
Suffering from ERBS paralysis, Maartens says she draws a lot of her inspiration from local PE swimmer and disabled athlete Kevin Paul. “He has proved to me that you can do anything anybody
Selse can despite your disability.”
She draws a lot of knowledge from both her school coach, Luke Crawford, and national coach Luke Manthe. She has specif- ic training regimes for the different competitions she participates in. For school games she trains three or four times a week and for EP five to seven times.
“I would like to thank Collegiate for making me the person I am, my coaches for everything they taught me and most of all my parents for always being there for me, taking me to practices and just for their undying love and support, attending my matches, and everything they have done for me to continue playing the sport,” Maartens said. OMILA Seyibokwe announced his return to the Warriors batting line-up with a maiden franchise hundred on the opening day of the Sunfoil Series cricket fixture against the Titans at St George’s Park yesterday.
The Border batsman had not played for the Warriors since mid-January and his contributions in his previous six franchise innings had only amounted to 30 runs.
Yesterday, he came to the party and his well-played 101 formed the backbone of a Warriors innings which stuttered initially, recovered in the middle and then finally succumbed to 282 all out.
The Titans celebrated a hero of their own yesterday as left-arm unorthodox spinner Tabraiz Shamsi delivered the superb analysis of seven wickets for 93 runs – the second time he has managed that many scalps in a single innings for the Titans this season.
It was an opening day which ebbed and flowed but the Titans, through Shamsi, came back to perhaps edge the honours in the final session.
The Warriors, however, will feel they have a decent sniff if they bowl well this morning, with Sisanda Magala picking up two wickets before the close and debutant Anrich Nortje one to leave Titans 78/3 in reply. Dean Elgar (34) and night watchman Marchant de Lange (7) will resume this morning.
Warriors captain Jon-Jon Smuts won the toss and opted to bat, but was dismissed off the third delivery of the day bowled by De Lange, looping a catch to Shamsi at mid-on.
The Warriors slipped to 78 for four in the 22nd over. Ethy Mbhalati then removed both debutant opener Martin Walters (8) and Colin Ackermann (27), while Shamsi accounted for the in-form Yaseen Vallie (28) – the first of five leg-before-wicket victims for the Titans bowler.
Kelly Smuts joined Seyibokwe and the two aggressively set about the Titans attack.
They were especially severe on Shamsi and De Lange as they rescued the innings from pending disaster, with a face-saving stand of 157 for the fifth wicket.
Smuts was first out with his score on 67, becoming Shamsi’s second leg-before scalp.
Seyibokwe moved to three figures shortly after tea before Shamsi accounted for his wicket with an easy catch by Elgar at first slip.
There were 13 fours and a six in his mature knock, which was his third first-class century.
Shamsi then bamboozled the remaining batsmen as the Warriors lost their last six wickets for only 47 runs. MAHENDRA Singh Dhoni's India will be looking to bounce back from their shock opening defeat when they take on a resurgent Pakistan in today’s World Twenty20 blockbuster in Kolkata.
Red-hot favourites India were stunned by an unfancied New Zealand on Tuesday when they were shot out for 79 in Nagpur – their lowest score on home turf in T20 internationals.
But India's limited-overs skipper has full faith in his side that came into the tournament on the back of 10 wins in 11 T20 matches, including an Asia Cup victory.
"What's important is how to turn around and how to come back strong and I think this team has done this plenty of times,“Dhoni said after the New Zealand loss.
After their stumbles in Nagpur, frontline India batsmen Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli will have to find their feet against a hostile Pakistan pace attack which includes the in-form Mohammad Amir.
Pakistan had come into the tournament in woeful form and their preparations were not helped by a row over security which led to the match being switched from Dharamsala to Kolkata.
But their trouncing of Bangladesh has banished the gloom. Skipper Shahid Afridi said the result was a "morale booster" ahead of the clash between the South Asian titans, who are both former World T20 champions.