St David’s Marist Inanda is the venue for a season-opening feast of two-day Time Cricket
The Fasken St David’s Time Cricket Festival is the traditional schools cricket season-opener in Gauteng and this year’s event – running from Thursday 5 September to Sunday 8 September – has been extended to feature 12 of the country’s top cricketing schools.
Five of the top Joburg schools will be there and they will be joined by Paul Roos Gimnasium from Stellenbosch, St Alban’s College from Pretoria, St Andrew’s School of Bloemfontein and two teams from KwaZulu-Natal: Clifton College and Maritzburg College. The 12th team is a Cricket South Africa Talent Acceleration Programme (TAP) XI.
The St David’s Festival began life as a T20 competition, but it was changed to a time cricket format in 2017 when the school’s director of cricket, Dave Nosworthy, arrived.
Nosworthy who has coached cricket at the highest levels, insists that the best cricketing lessons are taught to players in longer formats of the game.
“Twenty-over cricket has its place, but it should definitely not be a pre-season activity,” Nosworthy said. “At this time of the year players should be building fitness and resilience. Batsmen and bowlers need to build confidence in their shots and bowling actions, and captains should be given the opportunity to learn when to declare.”
T20 cricket is too short to allow those things to happen, Nosworthy said. “You have to spend way more time out there than a T20 game allows.
“Our schoolboy captains cannot become tactically astute if they are not exposed to situations in which they have to make decisions, and those situations only present themselves in longer formats of the game.”
The Fasken St David’s Time Cricket Festival is used by Cricket South Africa (CSA) to give up-and-coming payers who do not get these sort of opportunities a chance to match themselves against top opposition. For the second time this year they will be sending a TAP team to St David’s.
Niels Momberg, CSA’s manager of youth cricket said they are delighted to get the opportunity to expose some of their rising stars to “proper” cricket. The players come from their provincial high performance programmes and are at schools who do not attend festivals like the St David’s event, or the Michaelmas Week in Pietermaritzburg in October.
The Fasken St David’s Time Cricket Cricket Festival takes place from 5-8 September. The schools will play two two-day matches, which will feature two innings each and captain’s declarations are allowed.
Fixtures
Thursday 5th and Friday 6th September
Jeppe vs Clifton (St David’s Mc Gregor)
St David’s vs Paul Roos (St David’s La Rosey)
CSA TAP vs KES (St David’s La Valle)
St Stithians vs Maritzburg College (St Stithians)
St Alban’s vs Noordheuwel (St David’s Gier)
St Andrew’s vs St John’s (St John’s).
Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th September
St Alban’s vs Clifton (St David’s La Rosey)
KES vs St Andrew’s (St Stithians)
St Stithians vs Paul Roos (St David’s Gier)
St David’s vs Noordheuwel (St David’s La Valle)
St John’s vs Maritzburg College (St John’s)
Jeppe vs CSA TAP (St David’s Mc Gregor).
Photo: Supplied
