St John's College Zimbabwe: tour to South Africa

At the end of November St. John's College embarked on a 10-day cricket tour of Cape Town. The side selected consisted only of players in Lower 6, Form 4 and Form 3, in a sense the College First XI for 2000 except for Andrew Stone who was on a family holiday in Australia. The side faced formidable opposition in taking on three of the strongest Cape Town schools in Bishops, SACS, Wynberg and a Claremont cricket club Invitation XI, while the tour ended in Somerset West with a game against Somerset College.

In the beginning the College batsmen struggled to come to terms with the different conditions, as they were too used to batting on flat Zimbabwe batting tracks while they found in Cape Town the ball did a lot more through the air and off the track and they were facing competent bowlers who knew how to exploit the conditions. It was particularly pleasing to note the progress of the younger players as the tour progressed.

Individual batting highlights on the tour were Michael Brundle's 56 against Bishops and 42 against Somerset, while Richard Caldecott not only kept wicket competently but was also pressed into service as an opening bat and responded with a fine 81 against Somerset and 22 (run out) against Bishops. Peter Millett hit a fine 53 (5x4, 2x6) against Wynberg and 33 (3x6) against Bishops, while Brett Brant hit a valuable 48 in the game against Claremont. Of the senior players Barney Rogers found his touch with a well-played 49 against Wynberg.

The most impressive of the bowlers was left-arm quick Scott Brant who was rated by all opposing sides as the quickest that they had faced all year. As expected the spinners did well, with captain Stephen Wright and Stuart Carrihill impressing with their leg-spin while off-spinners Barney Rogers and Simon Seager also bowled well. Except for a poor first hour at Wynberg the team fielded well, thanks to the hard work put in by Bill Flower in this department.

The side only managed to win the last game against Somerset but the experience gained will stand the team in good stead in 2000, especially at the end of February when St. Johns and Falcon College will join 14 top South African schools in a tournament in Pretoria.