Pearson High are hosting their annual Pam Golding Properties Cricket Festival this week, with the first matches to be played on Thursday.
The Pearson Festival has become even more popular this year, with 22 teams competing over four days in the 11th edition of the tournament.
In addition to the Eastern Cape schools from the Nelson Mandela Bay metro and the country district areas, Border schools Stirling High, from East London, and traditional cricket powerhouse Queen’s College, from Queenstown, are two newcomers in the field.
Further afield, the exciting teams of Potchefstroom Gymnasium, from North West, and Somerset College, from the Western Cape, will again be part of the weekend’s action.
Another exciting prospect is the fact that the festival will again form part of the official trials to help selectors choose teams for the national U17 and U18 weeks.
Two Eastern Province Invitational teams made up of players from across the province will also participate in the festival.
The sides will play two Twenty20 matches on Thursday, a time format match on Friday, which will allow teams to bat twice, and 50-over matches on Saturday and Sunday.
Spectators can look forward to some mouth-watering encounters over the four days.
Some of the matches to look out for are Grey High against Potchesfstroom Gymnasium, Woodridge College versus Somerset College, Pearson taking on Queen’s and Woodridge against Hudson Park.
The festival provides teams the opportunity to prepare for their upcoming school holiday tours and for the 2018-19 leagues, filling the gap between the end of winter sports fixtures and the start of the summer programme.
Pearson principal Hela Roux said they were excited to host this prestigious festival again.
“Pearson’s annual festival is a fantastic opportunity for our top cricketing schools to kickstart the new season in fine style,” she said.
“We appreciate the support of our visiting teams and the main sponsor – Pam Golding Properties – and we look forward to some brilliant cricket being played.
“Most importantly, we hope that the boys will have fun and make sure that they build new friendships.”
TENNIS
The Pearson High boys’ and girls’ teams participated in the Marilie Moolman tournament in Cradock in mid-August.
The event pitted the country’s top schools players against each other and both teams performed extremely well.
The boys finished eighth, while the girls, who took second place, ended only two points behind the eventual winners – Paarl Gymnasium – after having beaten them comfortably in the pool round.
Pearson High’s No 1, Kaylin Bouwer, went through the entire tournament unbeaten in her last outing for the school.