With absolute clinical precision, Assupol TuksCricket assured over the weekend that they would get the opportunity to defend their title during the National Club Cricket Championships which the University of Pretoria is hosting in April.

The team played two games in the qualification tournament. On Saturday they managed to beat Benoni Northerns by 43 runs and on Sunday at home they outplayed Nkowankowa from Limpopo to win by nine wickets.

Two weekends ago Assupol TuksCricket collected their first trophy for 2019 by beating PHSOB in the final of the Northerns Premier League.

Being the ever perfectionist Kruger van Wyk (Assupol TuksCricket head coach) is reasonably happy with his team’s results so far. However, he is quick to mention that in sport, especially cricket, nothing can be taken for granted.

Assupol TuksCricket is celebrating a century of excellence. According to Van Wyk, it is not going to change anything in the way they go about doing things.

“The challenge remains to be the best we can be every time we take to the field. We will worry about partying and celebrating Assupol TuksCricket’s proud cricket legacy after we had achieved what we set out to do.”

A few weeks back Assupol TuksCricket lost to CBC. It was the first time in nearly three years that they lost a game in the Premier League. Van Wyk views it sort of as a blessing in disguise.

“It was good that we lost. No team has the right to expect to keep on winning. It becomes a scenario of the more you win, the greater the expectation become. The loss was timely reality check proving there can never be a time of resting on one’s laurels.”

As in the past, Van Wyk is not keen about talking about a possible outcome to the National Club Championships. For him, it is anyway a case of first things first. Assupol TuksCricket still got to defend their title in the Northerns T20-league before there can be any contemplation as to what might happen next.

While listening to him talk it becomes clear that Assupol TuksCricket is again a victim of their success. Van Wyk casually mentions that 26 players moved on for various reasons. Quite a few are currently playing professional and provincial cricket.

“It means we are in the rebuilding phase, the third time in four years. It is challenging, but I would have it no other way as that is what makes being coach such a challenging and rewarding job.”

Francois van Heerden is one of the Assupol TuksCricket players who justly can feel proud of what he has achieved so far. He is the top run scorer in the Premier League. Van Heerden has notched up 840 runs in 12 games at a rough average of 70. A definite highlight for him was his innings of 180 against Harlequins.

The seamer, Gideon Peters, seems to be gaining his best form after having missed a few games due to an untimely shins injury. Over the weekend he took 3/9 against the Benoni Northerns and 4/35 against Nkowankowa.