Plenty for the record books
The captain of the South African Women’s cricket team, Mignon du Preez, and Proteas teammate Dané van Niekerk had experts reaching for their record books in the latest round of Cricket South Africa (CSA) Women’s Provincial League matches when they both scored double centuries in the same 50-over match.
Playing for Northerns, Du Preez and Van Niekerk both made 203 not out in their match against Limpopo at Sinovich Park Oval.
Du Preez made her runs off 126 balls, while Van Niekerk faced 157 deliveries. Their partnership of 417 was a record for the second wicket this season.
Northerns put on 449 runs for the loss of one wicket, and then bundled Limpopo out for just 33 runs to win by a massive 416 runs.
What made Du Preez and Van Niekerk’s achievement even more impressive was that the Sinovich Park field where the match was played is one of the biggest in South Africa, making fours and sixes hard to come by.
It was not Du Preez’s first double century – when she was only 12 years old, she made an astounding 258 in a girls’ under-13 match between Gauteng North and Gauteng.
Two-hundred and three runs appeared to be a magic number – in Johannesburg, Kirstie Thompson scored 203 off 134 balls for Gauteng in their match against Mpumalanga. Gauteng made a total of 387/7, but rain washed out the rest of the match.
In another high-scoring match, Boland made 544/4 against Kei in Mthatha, with Sunette Loubser making 153 off 52 balls and Alison Hodgkinson 172 off 100.
V Smith took six wickets for nine runs and Moseline Daniels 4-14 as Kei were bowled out for 35, giving Boland victory by 509 runs.
Kei were the victims of another high score, when Western Province (WP) amassed 401 against them the following day. Shandré Fritz made 100 off 62 balls and N Moodley made 111 off 78. They shared a season’s record opening partnership of 211. WP bowled Kei out for 52, to claim victory by 349 runs.
In other matches, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) beat KwaZulu-Natal Inland (KZNI) by nine wickets, after dismissing them for 58 runs. North West beat Free State by 117 runs, the day after Griqualand West beat North West by eight wickets.
Easterns beat Limpopo by seven wickets, and in Oudtshoorn, South Western Districts had two successive victories, beating Eastern Province by one wicket and Border by 76 runs.
KZN are top of the Central log, with 15 points, followed by Griqualand West and North West. Northerns, with 20 points, are first in the Highveld log, followed by Gauteng and Mpumalanga.
Western Province have a total of 25 points and lead the West/East log. Boland are second and South Western Districts third.
