The boys from Bishop Lavis Cricket Club continued their winning streak when they beat Somerset West by five wickets in a match that was evenly poised.
Somerset batted first and got off to a good start with an opening stand of 45 within the first five overs of the match. With the opening bowlers not making any impact on the batting, it was left to spinner, Shaquille Phillips, to make the breakthrough when he clean bowled Jeanro Minnaar (20).
Wickets started to fall at regular intervals with some impressive bowling from speedster Waugn Koeberg and the spinners. For Somerset, Larry Morkel (46*) helped his team reach a total of 182/8 after the 50 overs. For the visitors Phillips was the pick of the bowlers with 3/25 in his allotted ten overs.
Lavis’s run chase got off to a rocky start with their top four batsmen back in the pavilion with the score on 46. But the team showed good resilience when Emillio Koeberg (65) and Ethienne Davids (54*) managed to form a partnership of 100 runs which was telling in securing victory for the visitors. John Petersen, selector, was very satisfied with the performance of Davids and Phillips who came into the team at very short notice. “I am very happy with the fighting spirit the guys showed after losing wickets up front, and today’s performance shows us that we have depth in the squad. It was good to see that the two newcomers fitted well in our team set-up,” Petersen said.
The Bishop Lavis second team scored a massive 300 runs in their innings with Shaun James the pick of the batsmen with 121 runs. James, now a senior campaigner, smashed eight sixes all over Lavis Park and he was also ably assisted by Cameron Julies (72*) who is also showing some signs of getting back to form. Peninsula could only manage to score 69 runs given Lavis yet another bonus point victory by 231 runs.
