Lowveld Mambas strike hard in action cricket IPT
It was ball for ball with Lowveld winning the skin again against the third batting pair.
The annual Action Sports Cricket Interprovincial Tournament (IPT) for juniors took place in Centurion, Pretoria last week where four teams of the Lowveld Mambas took part.
The u/11s lost the toss and went in to bat first. Luke Grimaldi and Gino Marsh scored an impressive 43 runs of which their total was 69 – not bad against a team like the Central Gauteng Lions.
The Lions only made 21 runs. This really fired up the Lowveld boys and one of the most exciting games ever (according to some of the spectators) ensued. It was ball for ball with Lowveld winning the skin again against the third batting pair.
All credit to the Lions’ final batting pair who kept their cool and managed to score 33 runs to draw against the Lowveld boys 69, two skins each. Lions won u/11 gold which showed that Lowveld had the potential to win. The Lions traditionally dominated IPT at all ages. The u/10s won six, the u/11s four, the u/12s two and the u/15s got to the bronze final and unfortunately lost.
“The coaches and managers were outstanding as these boys were under pressure playing the top teams in the country,” said one of the coaches, Eric Grimaldi.
Luke Grimaldi was team captain and was awarded player of the match against Boland and EG Panthers. Gino Marsh was player of the match against Northern Gauteng.
All three of the Lowveld girls who played for the South African u/18 girls team at the boys IPT this year excelled with Katie Prior and Jamie de Vos being made captain and vice-captain respectively.
As well as having a great week behind the stumps, Jamie topped the team stats afterwards with Katie hot on her heels in second place. Katie and Lowveld’s Anerike Jacobs also made the best individual scores for the girls during the week – with Katie’s knock of 24 against Easterns being the highest, closely followed by Anerika’s 23 against Northerns. The SA girls team participated in preparation of the upcoming world cup in Brisbane later this year.
Friday the junior league starts again as Mbombela has a junior IPT in December.
