Publications
Partners
Morgan Pillay, the Under-19 Coca-Cola Khaya Majola Cricket Week programme director, is confident the event will continue to feed the Proteas with players.
Pillay, who has been involved with school cricket for more than 25 years said this year he had seen a number of promising players who were capable of making it into the national team.
“Generally in this week [Khaya Majola Cricket] you get six to eight players,” the 56-year-old told City Press at the Western Cape Cricket Club in Rondebosch, Cape Town.
“But this year 17 players have done exceptionally well.
“And I think one of the reasons for this is because of the plan that was introduced by Cricket SA and we can see the pipeline is really working.”
The cricket week has been instrumental in producing the cream of the crop for the Proteas, such as Lungi Ngidi, AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Graeme Smith and Kagiso Rabada.
The players were produced in different years but are now household names in cricket locally and abroad.
They came through playing for their provincial teams at the Khaya Majola Cricket Week over the years.
On what he would still like to achieve as the director of the programme, Pillay said he would like to improve logistics of the games.
“All I want is to just continue to perfect all the logistics around the games so that when people come to the games they face no problems and find things running smoothly,” he said.
The Central Gauteng Lions won the final on Thursday, beating Western Province by 25 runs at Newlands Cricket Stadium in Cape Town. This was the sixth time in the past 10 years that the two teams contested the final.
On Friday the best performers throughout the week were selected to play the last match called the Coca-Cola challenge.
On the opening day bowler Jacques Vosloo of Mpumalanga won hero of the day after getting nine wickets and conceding 32 runs against Northern Cape.
On Monday Gauteng spinner Kgaudise Molefe was the hero of the day, taking 3-21 in his side’s nine-wicket win over Easterns.
Day three resulted in KwaZulu-Natal Coastal’s Matthew Pollard and on day four it was Steven Naidoo who was the hero.
The hero of the day award was given every day of the tournament in recognition of a game-changing heroic moment.
Pillay hinted that, next year, the event might come back to Benoni, Johannesburg.
