South Africa U19 captain, George van Heerden, came to the fore in the T20 Knockout Final and powered his young guns to a final over thriller to be crowned Champions at Buffalo Park on Sunday.
The battle lines were drawn in Buffalo Park, where two evenly matched sides contested the final of the Cricket South Africa T20 Knockout.
The Northern Cape Heat had all the confidence in the world after easily going past the Tuskers in Saturday’s semi-final. The SA U19 side were also oozing in confidence after winning all their fixtures on their way to the finals.
The toss was important on Sunday afternoon but both captains, Van Heerden and Ernest Kemm, got what they would’ve wanted from the toss anyway. Kemm trusted his side to defend any total in conditions that suit their attack while Van Heerden believed his side can chase down any total.
Van Heerden sent the Heat in to set a target after winning the toss. Christoffel Klijnhans and Kemm opened the batting for Heat. Kemm quickly switched to attack mode as Kwena Maphaka and Matthew Boast occasionally got their lines wrong in the first two overs.
Klijnhans and Victor Mahlangu had little contributions with the bat courtesy of Boast and Liam Alder. A 46-run stand between Kemm and Rivaldo Moonsamy was followed by a 50-run stand between Grant Thompson (35 off 25) and Gerhardt Abrahams (15 off 16). The Heat had put 141 runs on the board and fancied chances of defending the total after successfully defending 140 against the Tuskers a day before.
In reply, the U19s chased the score down with five balls to spare. It was a day for the skippers to stand out and both of them carried their teams on their shoulders in an attempt to win the comp for their sides. Kemm followed up his defiant knock with a clinical 1-20 in his 4 overs and took a crucial wicket of the dangerous Richard Seletswane.
Ronan Hermann lost his wicket for an uncharacteristic 17 off 22 after some tidy bowling from Benjamin van Rensburg (2-19) and Romano Terblanche (2-25).
Now, the game called for at least one of the top-order batters to get in and stay there until the end. Van Heerden walked in at three for the U19s and his team needed him to play a captain’s knock.
The 19-year-old went on to score an unbeaten 75 off 48 deliveries. His knock included eight 4s and a six.
Abdullah Bayoumy (8 off 6) provided good support to his skipper as he hung on to see the U19s to a four-wicket victory.
