South
Africa
Cricket
tour
by
Alex Brown
and
Todd BarrettI
t was a cold February morning when a
minibus bound for Heathrow airport
left King's, with 16 King's cricketers,
plus Mr Lewis, Dennis Breakwell and
Mr Biggs. After a good flight, we
landed in Cape Town in the early
morning, greeted by a heat most of us had not
experienced for a long time. We went straight
from the airport to a training session, where
Mr Lewis put us through our paces right from
the word go. Next stop: Table Mountain! We
travelled up to the top by cable car, which
some of the tour party didn't take kindly to!
We spent well over an hour at the top, taking
photos and enjoying the amazing view of the
city. The excitement amongst the squad was
amazing!
South African College Schools (who number Mr
Biggs amongst their former pupils), the oldest
school in South Africa, was to be the venue for
our first fixture the following day, but before the
match we had a tour of Newlands rugby and
cricket stadiums, an interesting experience for
all; it showed us a lot about the history of
sport in South Africa. Especially inspiring was
captain Alex Barrow's speech in the function
room at Newlands Rugby Stadium. At SACS,
we unfortunately lost the game narrowly,
despite a fantastic innings from our own South
African, Craig Meschede. However it was an
encouraging first performance against an
opposition in the middle of their season.
Our stay in Cape Town continued with a trip to
Robben Island to see Nelson Mandela's prison,
which is a must see for anyone who travels to
Cape Town. It gave us an insight into how
much South Africa has changed in the last
couple of decades or so. When a cricket team
embarks on a tour of South Africa, they are
expected to play at least one township side, so
our next fixture was against Langa township.
We began with a tour of the Langa community,
stopping off at an artist's studio, and continuing
on to the local restaurant for a delicious local
style lunch. Our tour guide gave us a
fascinating insight into the traditions and
culture of the township people, and we all felt
so privileged to have this experience. That
same afternoon, we played against the
township academy. We put out an
experimental side against the local team, and it
was a game we shouldn't really have lost, but
many positives were taken from our
performance.
Our final game in Cape Town was against
Rondebosch Boys' High School, which was a
well-contested affair. Unfortunately we lost
again, but the squad didn't lose confidence,
and instead of letting our heads drop, decided
to learn from the losses, something that during
our brilliant English season to follow, we
definitely looked back on!! Another good
innings from Craig Meschede was the highlight.
An internal flight to Port Elizabeth was our next
port of call. We travelled to Grahamstown by
coach, some two hours from Port Elizabeth, to
play against St Andrews, the previous school of
one of our tourists, Nathan Smith. This was
our first real performance of the tour, winning
very comfortably. Our stay in Grahamstown
also involved a trip to a fantastic sandy beach
and a certain breed of penguins that didn't take
kindly to Will Hardwick's efforts to make
friends! I also seem to remember, after all the
fishing chat, Den failing to catch even a cold
after sitting on the pier of a windy beach for
hours. After a good team evening out in
Grahamstown, we moved once again to Port
Elizabeth to play against Grey College, PE, an
interesting game which comprised of the
opposition (once again) winning the toss and
batting. The pitch was very flat to say the
least, and unfortunately the game ended up a
draw, with neither side, at any point, looking
like they were going to win. That night we
attended a local domestic T20 game in Port
Aluredian
36
The tour party with
Makhaya Ntini at
Johannesburg airport