Day 4 – 19 Sept 2009

After an early wake up and breakfast, we said goodbye to our very friendly and warm hosts. After another short and beautiful drive through the Eastern Cape country side we arrived in the quaint town of Somerset East. After meeting our host Mr Etienne Keyser (brother of the Great the Wise and not soo wonderful Mr Shaun Keyser) we had a short warm up before starting the third round of matches against Gill College.

In the A team game Gill won the toss and put us into bat. It was a somewhat unsettled start, but Josh van Marken held things together at the top of the order and scored a very valuable 19 runs. Other solid performances with the bat came from Jean van der Westhuyzen – 11, Luca Schwarte – 10 and Ivor Taverner – 10. We managed to score 109 all out in our 30 overs. We then took to the field and bowled a tight line and looked sharp in the field. Pick of the bowlers were Cameron Shepherd – 3 wkts and James Boyes, Andrew Dicey and Douglas Kerkmann who all picked up 2 wickets. The end result was that we won the match by45 runs.

The B team had a tough start to their game with Gill getting off to a quick start and scoring runs frequently. But the bowlers showed determination and fought back to pick up some crucial wickets. In the end we restricted them to 114 runs in 30 overs. The top bowlers were Dylan Wintle – 3 wkts, Jack Crowther 2 wkts and Sam Sendzul 2 wkts. We then batted and reached the total in 28 overs. The top batsmen were Jack Crowther 41 runs and Andreas Beukes 15 runs. The end result was that we won by 4 wkts. These were two great performances by the teams’, especially after moving from the lush fields of Grahamstown to the very dry and almost grassless fields of Somerset East, where they have been experiencing severe drought for the past year.

It was then off to the swimming pool for a cool off dip, which was enjoyed by all. We even managed to fit in a delicious milkshake at the Blue Crane restaurant before supper. It was then back to the hostel for some touch rugby and soccer, and a mouth watering country style supper. Mr Bones 2 was the DVD of choice for the evening, this was enjoyed by all.

Must go now and put the boys to bed because we have another early start tomorrow as we head off to Addo Elephant National Park and try to spot as many of the Bi 5 as possible. Will hope fully not have any more connection problems from now on seeing as how we are slowly making our way back to PE.