EASTERN Province should be a huge factor at the various national age group cricket tournaments later in the year.
There were some eye-catching performances from many of the Nelson Mandela Bay schools this season.
The provincial selectors took notice of the outstanding individual performances and should be able to field strong competitive squads at the upcoming tournaments.
This past Saturday Grey High and Pearson High showed there is a lot of talent around in the u/19 ranks in Gqeberha.
Playing at home, Pearson batted first and posted 166. Cayden Wilson impressed with his innings of 53 runs.
It was a real classy run chase by Grey. The pressure was building but the Grey batters kept their cool to win by two wickets.
Daniel Pienaar and Woodridge were involved in a Schools SA 20 match at St George Park on Saturday.
This was a match played before the Warriors and Titans took the field. Hopefully we will see more school matches being played as curtain raisers for the Warriors as this was a huge success.
The school cricketers really enjoyed and benefited from the experience.
Woodridge made 98/8 but struggled against the bowling of Jadwyn Cona who picked up four wickets. DP reached 99/2 in the 16th over to win by eight wickets.
The local cricketers are really enjoying themselves this season as there have never been so many opportunities for the young players, even the primary school players, to take their game to the next level.
With the T20 format of the game so popular all around the world, more and more school tournaments are coming into play.
The inaugural National Premier League (NPL) is just one new tournament which provides a competitive 20 over environment for the youngsters to develop their game.
We saw some fantastic performances in the NPL matches in Gqeberha. The Cape Storm outfit came out on top in the finals played at Grey Junior.
Cape Storm beat the East Coast Mariners by 48 runs in the u/10 final. They also beat the Port Elizabeth Centurions by nine wickets in the u/12 final.
Matthew Burton of Pearson caught the eye with his brilliant batting in the U16 matches. He was named as the batsman of the tournament.
The innings which stood out was when Burton, playing for the Bayside Pelicans, climbed into the bowling of the Mariners in one of the semi-finals.
He scored 107 runs and only needed 37 deliveries to achieve that. Burton hit an incredible 13 sixes and 5 fours!
There were also outstanding performances in the Cricket SA Schools SA20 tournament.
This tournament took a short holiday but resumed when the schools reopened, and we saw some wonderful matches.
The playoffs are not far away now, and the sparks will fly!
