CHAD JOHNSTON
Cricket is one of the more popular sporting codes at UP. Last season, the team finished as semi-finalists while representing South Africa at the Red Bull Campus Cricket finals in Sri Lanka. They also managed to finish as champions of the 2016 Varsity Cricket competition for the second consecutive season.
The club was founded in 1919 and as the game has developed so has the club, branching off into a women’s club in 1996. In 2008, Rob Walter started the Tuks Cricket Academy which caters for players across the spectrum from junior to senior level. The club has achieved a great deal of silverware and international success. For the past six years, the club has won the Northerns Cricket Union (NCU) Premier League. They have also won the NCU knockout competition seven years in a row and the NCU T20 club competition four years in a row.
For the last three years the club has participated in the Red Bull Campus Cricket finals, an annual international student competition that pits the finest university teams from around the globe against each other. UP-Tuks have won the student international showpiece on two consecutive occasions. In 2015, TuksCricket scooped multiple team awards at the annual Tuks Sports Awards. The team won the TuksSport Club of the Year, the TuksSport Team of the Year, and then head coach Pierre de Bruyn walked away with the TuksSport Coach of the Year award.
TuksCricket has produced some of the finest cricketers of South African cricket. Some famous cricketing alumni to emerge from UP include Albie Morkel, Morne Morkel, Paul Harris and current Protea T20 captain Francois “Faf” du Plessis. An exciting 2017 season awaits TuksCricket with the first priority being the 2017 Varsity Cricket tournament
Photo: Saspa
