The Somerset College's first team’s 2019 cricket season had a head start last weekend with
the pre-season tour to Port Elizabeth. We welcomed new-comers Josh Beart, Tiago Marques
and Ben Chaplin to their ranks.
The tour kicked off with a 53 run T20 victory against Westering with the hosts failing to
chase down the Somerset College 148 run target in their allotted overs. Na’eem Rhoda had
a great innings scoring 67 runs. On Day 2 against Despatch Somerset College had a
convincing first innings victory, bowling Despatch out for 126 then passing their score with
190/9 declared. With only an hour left to close of play, the second innings resulted in a
draw. Jesse Dukes gave a great allrounder performance taking 4 wickets and scoring 48
runs. Tiago Marques scored his maiden first team 50, ending on 57. Day three in Uitenhage
saw great performances by our bowlers as we restricted Daniel Pienaar to 103 in their
allotted 30 overs with Jesse Dukes and Justin Whitfield taking 3 wickets each. The batsmen
made quick work of this total and Somerset College won by 6 wickets. The final day 50 over
game against Framesby, saw Matthew Beattie and Na’eem Rhoda putting runs on the board
and setting a target of 222. In a nail-biting finish to this game, Framesby managed to scrape
the win in the final over, beating Somerset College by 5 wickets. It was a tour characterised
by camaraderie and a great deal of excitement for the coming season proving that the off-
season training and team building have a positive impact on pre-season performance.