picture: lonwabo marele
His innings, however, were not enough as they went down by eight wickets to the eventual champs, South African College Schools (SACS), in the quarter-finals.
Ngcizela came out blazing at number 5, scoring singles and a boundary, to record a run rate of 76.
Despite his teammates being bowled out by SACS’ first change bowler, Michael Levitt, who received a bowling figure of 3/16 in four overs, Ngcizela and his eighth wicket partner, Abdallah Bayoumi were determined to lift Newlands’ score to double figures with less than six overs to go.
They scored a partnership of more than 50 runs, with Bayoumi reaching 41 runs of 33 balls.
At the 20 over mark, Newlands scored 117 runs to end their innings, while SACS reached 119 runs with only two wickets down after 13.2 overs. SACS were the better team on both ball and bat on the day. Their opening batsmen Daniel Smith scored 50 runs not out, while Kai Curran scored 53 runs of 39 balls.
In other action, Cricket South Africa Primrose Hub came agonisingly close to a chance to play in the Cobras franchise final the same competition.
Primrose, whose squad was mostly made up of players aged under 16 year, came up against strong opposition during the quarter-final of the tournament played at Rondebosch at the weekend.
The hub faced the home side, Rondebosch Boys’ High School, and inspired by their fans, Rondebosch were ruthless with the bat, scoring 176/6 in their allotted 20 overs.
However, there were lots of positives for the hub bowlers despite the number of runs they conceded.
Nathier Sambo was particularly impressive with the ball, taking 2/35 as he tried to limit the damage by Rondebosch.
The Rondebosch bowlers also showed no mercy for the young Hub squad who were eventually bowled out for 52 in their innings.
Despite losing by 126 runs, the Primrose fielding could rank as the best of the weekend with spectacular catches on the field. Tashrique Dryden produced a blinder of a catch at leg gully to get rid of Quinn van Oordt. If there was any award given to great catches then this would have been a contender for catch of the tournament.
The Primrose parents should also be mentioned for the motivation they provided from the sidelines. The tournament was a good platform for Primrose to showcase their cricket abilities.
Proteas such as Kagiso Rabada, Aiden Makram and Quiton de Kock have played in the tournament in the past.
Rondebosch went on to lose in the semi-finals against eventual winners, SACS.
By winning the provincial finals, SACS are now one step closer to taking part in the national finals of the T20 Challenge. They now have to find a way past Boland’s Paarl Gimnasium and South Western District’s Langenhoven Gimnasium to see who will represent the Cobras in the national finals.
The winner of the franchise finals will join the other five franchise winners and the two schools that qualified through the CSA Focus School programme at the competition’s national finals at the University of Pretoria from Friday March 15 to Sunday March 17. The T20 Challenge winner stands to walk away with R110 000 for their school. Other clubs that took part in the latest round of the competition were Wynberg Boys’ High School, Western Cape Sports School, Strandfontein Cricket Club, Bishops and Newlands Cricket High School.