Despite the slow start, Ensal was confident his side’s approach would pay off.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people will say it was a slow start, but with wickets in hand we felt anything over 190\/200 would be a mammoth task, especially with the slow outfield,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very quietly confident going into the second innings.\u201d<\/p>\n
That confidence proved well founded as Old Grey’s bowlers dismantled the United Cricket Club chase.<\/p>\n
Gift Kwatsha claimed 5\/16 from nine overs, with Jack Loram taking 2\/29 and Patel 2\/12 as United were bowled out for 71 in 23.6 overs.<\/p>\n
Joshua Plaaitjies top-scored with 25, while Nathan George was unbeaten on 17.<\/p>\n
Ensal was delighted with the aggression shown by Kwatsha and Loram, particularly at the start of the innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cGift has the experience, and Jack is young, but the pair started really well with the ball,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never took our foot off the pedal. I was happy with the killer instinct we showed out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory secures Old Grey’s place at the national club championships in January 2027 as the Eastern Cape representatives.<\/p>\n
Their immediate focus, however, will be on T20 cricket over the next few weeks before they return to the longer format ahead of the club championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re aiming for that honours as well, I won\u2019t lie,\u201d Ensal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long road ahead, but I\u2019m happy my men aren\u2019t shy to work hard. We can get better in all three facets of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the slow start, Ensal was confident his side’s approach would pay off. \u201cSome people will say it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":915930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[483464,64,63,483458,740,483456,483463,483462,483460,483461,483457,483459,483455,85],"class_list":["post-915929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-ashley-ostling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-border-champions-united","tag-cricket","tag-eastern-cape-cricket","tag-elnathan-meiri","tag-gift-kwatsha","tag-gqeberha-cricket","tag-michael-ensal","tag-national-club-championships","tag-nmbca-premier-league","tag-old-grey-cricket-club","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}