Gauteng beat Northerns in another close encounter in Pool A, to get their first win of the tournament, writes Emily Norris.
In the second game of Pool A in the CSA Women’s Provincial 1-Day League, Northerns were up against Gauteng.
Gauteng won the toss, choosing to bowl first. They picked up the wicket of Robyn Searle in the very first over of the innings. She was bowled by Raisibe Ntozakhe for a duck, facing just 3 balls. This early wicket for Gauteng set the tone for the rest of the innings.
Although there was some urgency from Eliz-Mari Marx, scoring 25 runs off 49 balls, and from Nicolien Janse van Rensburg scoring 26 off 60 balls, Northerns never really got going in their innings. Marx and Janse van Rensburg were the only two who seemed to inject some sort of impetus into the Northerns innings. Marx hit the only 6 of their innings off the bowling of Kgomotso Rapoo.
Northerns lost wickets at regular intervals, limping their way to 102-9 in their 50 overs.
Gauteng opened the batting with Jenna Searle and Kirstie Thomson. They approached their innings with a bit more urgency compared to that of Northerns. They had a decent opening partnership of 35 until Searle was dismissed off the bowling of Ricea Coetzer, caught by Robyn Searle.
Gauteng started to lose wickets regularly and their good start was quickly extinguished, as they went from 35-0 to 51-5. Coetzer played a good hand in this mini-collapse, picking up the wickets of Searle, Nonkululeko Thabethe, Sharne Mayers and Kirstie Thomson. She finished with figures of 4/33 in her 9 overs.
Yolani Fourie and Rapoo then rebuilt the innings, putting on a partnership of 45 runs before Fourie was bowled by Khanyisile Skhosana. Skhosana picked up Ntozakhe shortly after, however, it proved to be a little too late and too few runs for Northerns, as Gauteng chased the score down with 16.2 overs to spare, ending on 103-7, and winning by 3 wickets.
