A masterly knock of 143 off 121 deliveries by South Africa U-19 captain, Raynard van Tonder guided his team to a 169 runs victory over Kenya in the U-19 World Cup opening match in their group.
South Africa put up a mammoth 341/7 in their 50 overs, before restricting Kenya to only 172/7 in reply, at Lincoln in New Zealand.
South Africa Matthew Breetzke early in their innings but Van Tonder and Jiveshen Pillay (62 off 67) put on 125 runs for the 2nd wicket to lay a good platform to launch a big total. After Pillay’s departure, Hermann Rolfes (28 off 33) combined to form a 63 runs partnership for the 3rd wicket with Van Tonder, after which South Africa lost few wickets in a cluster before an unbroken partnership of 65 runs for the 8th wicket between Jade de Klerk (28 off 23) and Gerald Coetzee (36 from 14) took them to the final score of 341.
Kenya never had any momentum going in their innings and were stranded at 98/6 at one stage of the match and only because of a 52 runs partnership for the 7th wicket between Jasraj Kundi (41) and Ankit Hirani (35) brought some reprieve for the Kenyans before ending at 172/7 in their 50 overs.
Akhona Mnyaka (2/9) and Keenan Smith (2/36) were the pick of the bowlers for South Africa U-19 with Thando Ntini & Jade de Klerk picking up a wicket apiece. Kenya need to rebound quickly in their 2nd match to have any hopes of advancing from the group.
