Matches played Saturday 6 March

MASHONALAND CLUBS KNOCKOUT COMPETITION

Two semi-final matches were played in the knockout competition for the Vigne Cup (Harare) teams. Matches are restricted to 35 overs per side.

UNIVERSALS v OLD HARARIANS, at Universals Sports Club

UNIVERSALS 216/2 (35 overs) (E A Brandes 108*, A D R Campbell 76). OLD HARARIANS 168/9 (35 overs) (D P Viljoen 26, P A Strang 27, T L Penney 65*; E A Brandes 2/19, E Matambanadzo 2/16, A D R Campbell 2/39). Universals won by 48 runs.

Universals, the holders, were still in with a chance of retaining one of the four trophies they won last season, and they did not waste it. This was actually the first match they had been able to play on their home ground this year after so much rain.

Batting first, they opened with Eddo Brandes, who with a fine mixture of discretion and powerful hitting scored a century and shared in a major partnership (details as yet undisclosed) with Alistair Campbell. Both batsmen hit five sixes in their innings.

League champions Old Hararians could not match the required scoring rate of more than six runs per over. Trevor Penney, playing with his hand strapped after splitting it in his team's last match two weeks ago, batted defiantly in a lost cause. Brandes followed up his century with two cheap wickets.

ALEXANDRA SPORTS CLUB v HARARE SPORTS CLUB, at Alexandra Sports Club

HSC 227/8 (M A Vermeulen 21, A M Blignaut 86, D J Peacock 58; S G Davies 2/29, G du Plessis 2/19, G C Martin 2/40). ALEX 166 (D A Marillier 28, M W Goodwin 61; K J Davies 2/57, C B Wishart 3/39). Harare Sports Club won by 61 runs.

Pace bowler Andy Blignaut showed he has another string to his bow when he hit a powerful 86 for Harare Sports Club, which eventually proved to be the decisive performance in this match. He was assisted by Dan Peacock, until recently considered mainly as an off-spin bowler, but who is now showing fine form with the bat.

Although Murray Goodwin made a good fight of it, Alex were unable to challenge the Sports Club total.

Universals will play Harare Sports Club in the final at Sports Club next Saturday, 13 March. The Harare Sports Club ground is now available again after being out of action for a few months while the square was being extended.

Matches played Sunday 7 March

NATIONAL LEAGUE KNOCKOUT COMPETITION

ALEXANDRA SPORTS CLUB v OLD GEORGIANS SPORTS CLUB, at Alexandra Sports Club

OLD GEORGIANS 347/1 (50 overs) (M A Wagh 57, G W Flower 116*, C N Evans 159*). ALEX 204 (G A Rennie 20, G C Martin 20, S G Davies 77*, J W Armitage 34; D J Rowett 2/22, M A Wagh 6/30). Old Georgians won by 143 runs.

Craig Evans played one of the most devastating innings seen in senior club cricket for many a long year after Old Georgians had won the toss and decided to bat first. Old Georgians took advantage of a weak Alex attack; pace bowler Matt Denslow, who missed the entire national league programme with Achilles tendon trouble, had been expected to play, but he broke down again in the Saturday match. Alex have actually done very well to finish second in the national league considering the weakness of their bowling attack, which was really shown up for the first time in this match.

The foundation for Old Georgians' remarkable total was, as usual, a sound opening partnership between Grant Flower and Mark Wagh. Wagh, in his final match for the club before rejoining Warwickshire for the county season, dominated a partnership of 86, hitting 11 fours in his 57 off 60 balls, mostly powerful hits off the back foot, his particular strength. He finally popped up a return catch to one of Gavin Rennie's left-arm spinners; Rennie was to be the only Alex bowler to escape severe punishment, having the good fortune to bowl his ten overs on the trot before the real slaughter began.

The 100 came up in the 18th over, and Grant Flower slowly began to open out with increasing fluency. When he reached his century off 98 balls, he became the first batsman this year to reach three figures in a senior club match: the highest in the whole of the rain-ruined national league had been 87 by Neil van Rensburg of Queens Sports Club. Flower eventually scored 116 off 112 balls, with 12 fours.

Flower was completely overshadowed, though, by the brutality of Evans, most of whose runs came with powerful straight hitting through the line. Evans reached his century off 87 balls, and then took only another 12 balls to reach 150. He hit a gigantic six of Sean Davies which not only went out of the ground but also cleared the tall trees on the edge of the ground and a private house on the far side. Then Flower took a single to give Evans the strike against Gary du Plessis; he hit him for three sixes and a four off successive balls in an over that eventually cost 24 runs. Murray Goodwin bowled the final over, pitching everything virtually in the blockhole to cramp Evans' style somewhat, before the innings closed with Evans unbeaten on 159 off 105 balls, with 11 fours and 9 sixes.

So dominant was the bat that not a single lbw appeal was made during the entire innings. Both batsmen offered a difficult chance in the deep near the end of their innings, and there was one Keystone-Cops type mix-up between the wickets before a wild return relieved the pressure. Apart from these incidents, there was only one side in it all the way.

Alex never had any realistic chance of coming close to this score, and the top order batted with little resolution, while some good catches were taken in the field. Utter humiliation beckoned when seven wickets were down for just 90 runs, but then came a stand with much more determination between Sean Davies and James Armitage, who fought back with a partnership of 98 for the eighth wicket. When Armitage eventually fell, the end came quickly, with Davies left undefeated after a fine but unavailing innings.

OLD HARARIANS v HARARE SPORTS CLUB, at Old Hararians Sports Club

HSC 134 (41.5 overs) (J M Oates 49, D J R Campbell 23; P A Strang 3/17). OH 135/5 (G Lamb 47, D P Viljoen 55; K J Davies 2/18). Old Hararians won by five wickets.

Two weeks earlier the same two sides met at the same venue in the final league match of the programme, when Sports Club had triumphed due to fine innings by Stuart Carlisle and Craig Wishart. Old Hararians were clearly thirsting for revenge, and they found it.

On what the players describe as a typical Old Hararians pitch, slow with the occasional ball keeping low and mediocre for batting, Sports Club battled against fine bowling from Old Hararians. Paul Strang bowled a superb spell to take three cheap wickets, but he was very well backed up by good seam bowling from his brother Bryan and Gary Brent. All bowled superb line and length on a pitch that was doing enough to make this type of bowling very difficult to score from.

However it was two early run-outs that started Sports Club's woes. Kallin Davies was dismissed almost immediately when failing to observe his own dictum, ``Never take a chance with Trevor Penney!'' Sure enough, a brilliant throw shattered the stumps while he was still short of his ground. Then Craig Wishart, who has had a remarkable run of unlucky dismissals this year which have helped to lose him his place in the national side, was run out while backing up, the ball fortuitously rebounding off the bowler's fingertips. Presumably nobody is interested in changing the law which permits such accidental dismissals, although they happen frequently enough to warrant notice.

Jason Oates held the middle order together with a good responsible innings before falling on 49, well caught by Gary Brent diving at midwicket. There is a scoreboard at the ground capable of recording individual scores, but nobody is ever appointed by the club to work it. One presumes the reason is that, due to the lethal nature of the rollers to turn the figures, there is nobody left on the ground staff with a full set of fingers. Oates, like most others who play first-league cricket, was unaware of his score. None of the clubs bother to run their matches with a fully operative scoreboard, and this is a situation that should change. These are the matches played by the leading club sides in a Test-playing country, Test players regularly participate, and the matches should be given the respect they deserve.

Sports Club were not about to give up without a fight. Andy Blignaut began with some very hostile bowling, shattering Patrick Gada's stumps in the first over with a superb delivery which swung in at full pace. With Ray Price given out caught at the wicket, a rather strange decision, Old Hararians were 6 runs for two wickets. But, as tends to happen at the moment, Blignaut after three or four overs lost some of his pace and direction and was no longer a threat.

Greg Lamb, voted young Cricketer of the Year by the Cricket Society of Zimbabwe, suffered a most uneasy start against Blignaut early on, but stuck it out manfully. He was batting at number three for the first time this season, the club finally realising they were wasting his talent after putting him at about eight for five matches, in which he batted twice, once scoring 51. At the other end Dirk Viljoen settled in, and this pair was to share in a crucial partnership of 118.

Lamb, once settled, kept the score moving with some good straight hits and mature placement of the ball, while Viljoen later on played some fine aggressive strokes. Both fell just before the end, as did Gary Brent, but they had done enough to ensure that Old Hararians go into the final with a chance of seizing their third trophy of the season.

Both finals are to be played next weekend, assuming the better weather of the last ten days holds, and at Harare Sports Club. It is good to see four different sides contesting the two finals.

FORTHCOMING FIXTURES (subject to interference without prior notification from the weather):

Saturday 13 March: Mashonaland League knockout final Harare Sports Club v Universals Sports Club, at Harare Sports Club

Sunday 14 March: National League knockout competition: Old Georgians Sports Club v Old Hararians Sports Club, at Harare Sports Club