Zimbabwe schools - Alexandra Park Festival report

The Alexandra Park Festival is one of the biggest junior school cricket festivals in Zimbabwe. This year few schools took part in this festival which not only boasts of having the biggest trophy at junior school sport but is probably the only cricket festival that gives prize money to the winners.

This year the festival was held on Saturday 7 October. As coach of one of the participating schools, I arrived with my team at 7.45 a.m., 45 minutes before our first game. We had a good warm-up and at 8.30 were on the field, ready to take on our opponents in the five-team Pool A. Our first opponents, Chipembere, are not a school like ours. Their team was made up of boys picked from different schools. Only teams like this had won this sort of tournament before because their coaches had a large pool of boys to choose from. This background appeared to favour Chipembere. The spectators had already awarded victory to Chipembere before the game had been played.

Eaglesvale won the toss and put Chipembere in to bat. The boys fielded their hearts out with the bowlers bowling a tight line and length in the 10-over game. Chipembere managed to score 50 runs for the loss of three wickets. Luke Bartosz took two wickets for 12 runs in his three overs. Steynberg van Zyl also bowled well in this game although he did not take a wicket. From the beginning of the Eaglesvale innings the boys were chasing that score as they batted with a lot of aggression. The opening pair of Michael Dube (25 not out) and Shane de Beer (14 not out)brought us a comfortable victory with two overs to spare.

In our second game we played Gateway. Gateway scored 73 for the loss of four wickets, quite a challenging target. We needed to score at a rate of 7.4 runs per over. Again Luke Bartosz bowled an impressive spell, taking one wicket for 12 runs. Shane de Beer took one for four in his one over and Richard de Santos also took one wicket. When we batted Michael continued his good from, scoring a well-grafted 25 not out. Eaglesvale won the game in seven overs.

We met up with Ruzawi in the third game, and they scored 73 for four wickets. Eaglesvale's Justin Heymans took one wicket for four runs. Eaglesvale were led to victory by Luke Bartosz who this time around featured with the bat, scoring 28 not out. Victory came in seven overs for Eaglesvale.

In the semi-final we played Highlands from pool B. Eaglesvale batted first and scored 70 runs in a match that turned out to be closely contested. Again Michael Dube played a magnificent innings to score 26 not out. Highlands were determined to win as they came out with all guns blazing. Their score was ticking over but they were also losing wickets. Eaglesvale's fielding was top-notch in this game. Andrew McKean, our own version of Jonty Rhodes, took three catches. Eaglesvale booked a place in the final as Highlands fell short of their target by 12 runs.

In the final we had to play Gateway who had also won their semi-final match against the hosts Alexandra Park. Eaglesvale won the toss and put Gateway in to bat. Gateway's opener was run out off the first ball and Steynberg van Zyl bowled the other opener to remove two batsmen in the first over. Gateway's middle order recovered, thanks to Bailliff and Jogi. They managed to bat through their allocated 12 overs to score 62 for four wickets. Eaglesvale batted around the in-form opener Michael Dube who top-scored with 26 not out. Steynberg van Zyl led from the front as an exemplary captain by taking two wickets and scoring a splendid 25 that included 4 fours. Eaglesvale won the final by seven wickets to become the Super Eight champions for the year 2000.