Hinton’s five-wicket haul ensures United victory

United Cricket Club’s Premier XI welcomed KT (Kwa Thema) Windies to Hosking Park on Sunday, March 8, for their penultimate fixture of the 2014/2015 Eastern Premier League campaign.

Following a bye the previous weekend, skipper Justin Gamble and his team were raring to go, and were aiming to secure victory against the league’s bottom-dwellers and keep their fourth-place position intact.

Gamble’s team batted first and, despite a steady innings of 32 runs from opener Zander Els, there was not much to write home about for United as their order crumbled to set the Windies a moderate target of 133 to win.

When the visitors stepped in to bat, they were in for a fast-bowling master-class from United’s leading wicket taker this season, Kevin Hinton.

He blitzed his way to sublime figures of 5/29 in his ten overs and was ably backed by fellow opening bowler Oswaldo De Sousa who bagged figures of 2/28 in his ten overs.

Branden Grutter and David Zweni picked up a wicket apiece as the away team’s batsmen were cleaned up for 106 all out (a 27-run win for United).

Team manager Des Gamble was disappointed with the batting display and said that the team “chucked their wickets away”.

“We can’t go on like that, with the bat against a stronger team and it’s something that we will definitely need to improve on in the future,” he said.

“Kevin stepped in though and completely destroyed them with his pace.

“He is a humble lad and he let the ball do the talking, while Oswaldo backed him up well.”

Gamble added that with one match left in the league, the team is confident that they can maintain their grasp on fourth position.

United will host Tembisa at Hosking Park on Sunday, March 15, with the first delivery scheduled to be bowled at 9.30am.