Rylands stun Durbanville CC in Athlone

A five-wicket haul by Rylands Cricket Club’s Rushdi Jappie ensured a well deserved 27-run victory over Durbanville Cricket Club, during a Western Province Cricket Association Premier League match, in Athlone, on Saturday.

What started of as somewhat of a disaster for Rylands’ batting order, turned out to be a good performance for their bowlers. Durbanville won the toss and chose to bowl first, with Bradley Petersen and Jody Lawrence destroying Rylands’ hopes of reaching the 100 mark.

Jappie said any team that gets 87 runs and still manages to win has to have done extremely well.

“We are happy with the weekends result. It gives us a lot of confidence, especially against Durbanville, they are probably one of the best teams of the decade,” he said.

Rylands were bowled out for 87 runs, with their highest scorer being Rushdi Jappie’s 32 runs off 100 balls.

“The wicket was quite sporty. I just put the ball in the right areas and bowled really aggressive,” he said.

Durbanville, on the other hand, started off slowly with their opening batsmen, Jean Strydom (10 runs) and Fritz De Deer (16 runs) facing 27 and 43 balls, respectively.

As it turned out, Rylands bowlers, Jappie and Abdullah Bayouny had other plans. Former SA under-19 bowler and WP Britz winning bowler, Bayouny drew first blood when he bowled-out Strydom. A few balls later, Jappie bowled and caught De Beer.

“Abdullah bowled extremely well. He is quite a skillful player. He could have taken more wickets. He matured well, it was a fantastic effort,” said Jappie.

From there on, the 87-run target set by Rylands looked blurry for Durbanville, as their wickets began to tumble to Jappie’s bowling. The young lad picked up five wickets for 11 runs in seven overs, dismissing Durbanville for 60 runs all out.

Rylands will look to make it three out of three wins when they take on an in-form UWC side, in Bellville, on Saturday.

“We are playing UWC. It will be quite a challenge, they have done well. But we have also done well, the two back-to-back wins give us a lot of confidence. We beat them in the first game so this will be interesting. Last season we beat them once and they beat us once,” said Jappie.