ACC cricketers incur coach’s wrath

AMANZIMTOTI Cricket Club’s (ACC) team played their penultimate warm-up game on Sunday against Umlazi at the Toti oval.

Two T20 matches were scheduled for the day.

In the morning ACC fielded an almost full strength first team against Umlazi first team. In the afternoon game, both teams made changes to give the second team and youngsters a game, and to test the depth of first team reserve players from both clubs. Umlazi first team will be playing their first season in the Challenge League stream one. Therefore the result of these games was of no importance; but the day was more about the coaching staff helping the Umlazi coach identify their strengths and weaknesses, and then putting some plans in place to help them overcome those problem areas.

Coach Desigan asked the first team to go onto the field and play the match as if they were in a final. He wanted them to play ‘intelligent’ cricket in a high intensity game; so as to really test Umlazi. Jarryd lost the toss and Toti was asked to bat first. Warren Fry had sat out last season with a bad shoulder injury. He and Jarryd opened the batting. Warren struggled for an over or two before he found his groove and then batted very well for 42 off 39 balls, before he was bowled. Jarryd made a solid 36 off 35 balls. Tegan made a quick fire 34 off 21 balls. Thomas Percival was next best, making six off seven balls not out. ACC finished its 20 overs with the score on 135 for seven. JJ really took Desigan’s dressing down of the team’s batting performance to heart, and opened the bowling. At the completion of his four over spell, Umlazi were six wickets down for 11 runs. JJ finished with six wickets for five runs, two of which were wides that pitched on off stump and flew down leg. After that the team went to sleep; much to the annoyance of Desigan.

Umlazi were finally bowled out in the 20th over for 52 runs. Desigan’ s discussion with the team at the completion of this game is not fit for print.

In the second game, ACC batted first and scored 161 for seven wickets.

Mike scored an impressive 57 off 37 balls, closely followed by Faf with 45 of 31 balls. Both of these batters had the long on and long off boundary riders digging in the bush for the ball. Between them they hit five fours and eight sixes. Umlazi were always going to struggle to chase down the 162 needed. They were bowled out in the 18th over for 72 runs, much to the delight of the Toti players who had thereby narrowly avoided the wrath of Desigan.

It was agreed that some of the Umlazi players and their coach will join ACC’s first team for certain practises so that Desigan can assist them with a few things that they lack to get them more competitive in the league. This will also allow them to see first-hand how hard the first team trains and the intensity that goes into all their practises.

On Saturday and Sunday, 17 and 18 September, ACC will have another busy two days of cricket. On Saturday ACC hosts the junior six-a-side cricket day. The U11s will play on the soccer field, the U13s on the oval and the U15 teams on the cabbage patch (Toti 2). All the finals will take place on the oval on Saturday afternoon. Each age group will be playing for a floating trophy. There will be team trophies as well as best batter, best bowler and most valuable player awards. With all these trophies on offer and the quality of the club’s rising young stars, they expect every match to be hard fought and exciting cricket should be the order of the day.

Sunday will see ACC first team take on Chatsworth Sporting – a Premier League team renowned for playing hard, exciting cricket with a lot of highly talented players in their midst. It will be Toti’s last and hardest warm-up game before the T20 league starts the following week. Sunday will give a good indication as to whether or not ACC will be in contention to win the league this year and earn promotion to the Premier League. The club urges all local cricket lovers to support the juniors on Saturday and the seniors on Sunday. Both days will be highly entertaining and Lords and Legends will have all TVs tuned to the rugby, soccer and cricket from around the world.