League leaders defeat spirited United
United Cricket Club’s Premier XI made their return to Eastern Premier League action on Sunday, January 11, with an away trip to the Barnard Stadium, in Kempton Park, to face table-toppers Kempton Park Cricket Club.
The much revered Kempton Park team batted first and were in deep trouble early on in the match, when United’s opening bowlers dismissed both of their opening batsmen for ducks.
At one stage of the innings a courageous United bowling outfit had the home team in a precarious position at 70/6, until Kempton’s Marius Lubbe got stuck into the attack on his way to a good score of 92.
The best of United’s bowlers was former Kempton Park player JP Kok, who bagged figures of 4/40 in his 10 allotted overs.
Branden Fleming, Kevin Hinton, Dylan Rayner and Branden Grutter claimed a wicket each, as Kempton ended the innings with a score of 214/8 in their 50 overs.
A determined batting display from the team from Hosking Park ended in the 40th over, with United just 21 runs short of the target.
Aidan Justus was the best batsmen for the Brakpan-based team, with a score of 33.
According to team manager Des Gamble, it was a good all-round team performance from the young United players against the very professional Kempton Park outfit.
“It is always a pleasure to play against Kempton Park, because our players learn a lot from them,” he said.
“We had them extremely worried at one stage and we can take some positives from that.
“All in all it was a very good game and a good learning curve for our players.”
