‘We are the champions, my friends. We will keep on fighting till the end. We are the champions. We are the champions of the world.’

This well-known lyric from rock group Queen resonates with NWU-Pukke’s championship winning cricket team after a superb 7 wicket win against hosts Sri Lanka today at the 2017 Red Bull Campus Cricket World Final.

Pukke are the kings of campus cricket and are the well-deserved winners after a brilliant week of cricket in Sri Lanka. They take the prestigous title back to South African shores largely thanks to a superb bowling display that restricted Sri Lanka to 121 all out after 18.4 overs. Julian Soutter’s 3/16 and Dyllan Matthews 3/22 was crucial in keeping Sri Lanka to a low score. Soutter was named man of the match for his accurate bowling, while Matthews ended his tournament as top wicket-taker.

Janneman Malan once again stood tall with the bat and hit a majestic 64 * (47) to end the tournament as the top run-scorer and steer his side to the title with 28 balls to spare in their total of 122/3.

Malan was well supported by Marques Ackerman (23) and Ruan Haasbroek (20*) as Pukke made it look easy in the final.

Pukke dominated the other teams and were just too clinical, consistent and clever for the opponents.

Read more on the players reaction and a full round-up of the tournament in Thursday’s edition (21 September) of Potchefstroom Herald.