Makhanda school take honours in Zimbabwe T20 cricket event

Graeme College rounded off an excellent trip to Harare in Zimbabwe when they emerged triumphant in the St George’s T20 cricket tournament on Sunday in their first appearance at the event.

They came up against Maritzburg College in the final, and it proved to be a tight affair.

However, the Graeme batters did not falter and setting a total of 181/5 in a final is always going to take some chasing.

Zuko Pontshi led from the front with 56 off 51 balls, and he was well assisted by Caleb Jattiem (38 not out off 26 balls) and Corbin Tidbury (32 off 17 balls).

Despite a good start and a flurry at the end, the Graeme team had the response from the KwaZulu-Natal side under control, restricting Maritzburg to 160 all out and victory by 21 runs.

Fielding a youthful side at the event, Graeme had some warm-up games which went well. Those performances were indicative of what was to follow.

In an extensive warm-up schedule ahead of the tournament, they secured wins against Peterhouse, Prince Edward, St George’s and St John’s College.

Tidbury (88 off 49 balls) showed that he was going to be a handful in Zimbabwe after his innings against St George’s.

Kits McConnachie showed pure class with both ball and bat, and it was exciting to see Enrique Strydom in the runs at the top of the innings as well.

Hellenic brought the team down to earth as they lost the final warm-up game, but this was not the last time they would meet that team.

It was no surprise that they put one over Graeme as they would go on to have an outstanding tournament as well.

Graeme started the tournament with two convincing bonus-point wins against Kingswood and Churchill on the opening day.

On day two, they were outplayed by Falcon College in their last pool match but then hit back brilliantly against St John’s College in their first cross-pool match, which then became knockout games.

There were massive performances by some of the stars, but what was pleasing was that all the players chipped in at crucial times.

The younger players were already making their mark with significant contributions.

Then came another Makhanda derby against St Andrew’s College, 2,100km away from where it is normally played.

St Andrew’s ended on 142/5 after their 20 overs, this time with Caleb Jattiem and Lisekho Zinyane picking up the wickets.

With the pressure on, up stepped Tidbury again for the big moment. His 79 off 54 balls should have been enough to secure the match, but the team needed Malakiwe Nikelo and James Muir to put on 21 important runs for the eighth wicket to secure the tense derby victory.

Then came the semifinal against Hellenic, who had beaten Graeme in the warm-up game.

Hellenic amassed a daunting 196/8 in their 20 overs on a field with small boundaries.

It wasn’t an easy day for the bowlers, but Enrique Strydom was superb, finishing with 5/33.

Chasing that type of target, you need your big guns to fire, and what happened next was simply sensational.

Tidbury (112 not out off 59 balls) linked up with McConnachie again (56 not out off 36 balls) to complete a remarkable victory in the final over, and a place in the final.

You can’t get much better than your captain scoring a century in the semifinal to create momentum going into a final.

In the end, Graemians topped both the bowling and batting rankings for the tournament.

Tidbury ended as the highest run scorer (358) and McConnachie took the most wickets (15).