The Tukkies rugby team have lost their title as Varsity Cup champions this year, but their cricket colleagues ensured that the university could still boast to have a champion team in their midst.
The Tuks Cricket team is heading to London in July this year to measure themselves with the world’s best student teams in the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals. This has become possible for them after they beat Maties in three action-packed matches at the Tuks oval in Pretoria where the two teams slog it out to see who would become Red Bull Campus Cricket South Africa Champions. Eventually Assupol Tuks came out victorious, winning all three of the three match series. The Pretoria and Stellenbosch campuses were chosen for these games because they were the two finalists in the national universities week held in December last year.
In match one of three, national club champions, Tukkies, powered to a seven-wicket victory off the first ball of the penultimate over against Maties. The comfortable Tukkies victory was set up by the skill of their bowling attack, backed by the intensity and discipline of their fielding, which limited Maties to just 118 for four in their 20 overs after they had won the toss and elected to bat first. The target was a stroll in the park for Tukkies as Aiden Markram, blasted 50 not out off 45 balls.
Tukkies secured their place in the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals by hammering Maties by seven wickets with four overs to spare in the second match. They had produced another excellent effort in the field to dismiss Maties for just 106 and Markram lead Tukkies to their target of 107 with a swift 57 runs.
In the final match of the tournament Tukkies beat the University of Stellenbosch by 19 runs. Maties, chasing for the first time in the tournament, were set a target of 145 by Tukkies and seemed ahead of the game as they reached 70 for two at the halfway mark of their innings thanks to captain Emile Kriek’s 33 and Keegan Petersen’s 27 off 21 balls. But this Tukkies team is remarkably focused and determined and their depth is not to be underestimated, and they dominated the final stages of the game to restrict Maties to 125 for six in their 20 overs.
A consistent performer throughout the three matches, Aiden Markram was awarded the ‘Player of the Tournament’ accolade. Having come straight from leading the South Africa u.19 team to their Junior World Cup title last month in Dubai, he carried Tukkies to victory in the first two games of the Red Bull Campus Cricket finals. He was man-of-the-match in both games with half centuries and had the measure of the Stellenbosch University bowlers from the outset. It was obvious that the powerful, tall right-hander is a young batsman who has learnt to play in different conditions.
Assupol Tuks captain, Theunis de Bruyn, was tired but elated. “It’s obviously a great feeling to win the first South African Red Bull Campus Cricket title. We knew that we had won the series after the second game, but was important that we kept the pressure on right until the end.”
When asked about their expectations for the upcoming Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals, De Bruyn was cautiously optimistic. “It will be the first time we’ve travelled overseas as a team and we’re looking forward to the experience of representing our country there. We don’t know much about the other teams that will be there, but can’t let that bother us. I’m confident if we stick to our plan, we’ll do well.”