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The 2026 edition of the St David’s Marist Inanda Fasken Time Cricket Festival will be remembered for a long time for two reasons, one for superb batting and big scores and the other for the first time that rain interrupted the proceedings and robbed the teams of close to a day and a half of play.

The lost time meant that, in the end, only one result was possible in the 12 matches - and credit must go to the KES lower order batsmen who secured their win in rapidly deteriorating conditions late on the second day.

The trend of big innings continued on the 1st day of the second round of matches at the St David’s Marist Inanda Fasken Time Cricket Festival on Saturday, with two 200s; two 100s and 14 50s being notched up.

Pride of place goes to the two double centurions, both at Hoërskool Waterkloof: AJ de Villiers, who was 217 not out against Noordheuwel, and Juan Swart who got 206. De Villiers put on a display of power hitting and precision placement which saw him go to 200 in 180 balls and hit 35 fours.

For the 1st time in its nine-year history, play at the St David’s Marist Inanda Fasken Time Cricket Festival was stopped because of the weather on Friday.

The predicted icy wind picked up early in the day and it brought a thunderstorm, with lightning, at 10.30am, sending the players scurrying into pre-arranged shelter areas where they had to kick their heels until after lunch.

Day one of the ninth St David’s Marist Inanda Fasken Time Cricket Festival took place on Thursday and it was dominated by the batsmen.

That’s not a much of a surprise, given the flat pitches, lighting fast outfields and unseasonable hot weather on the Highveld over the last two weeks. There were no fewer than 15 half centuries scored on day one, some of them big ones, and several were undefeated with the batsmen set to carry on in the morning.

The ninth St David’s Marist Inanda Fasken Time Cricket festival began in the customary way on Thursday with everyone meeting for breakfast in the school hall, before the teams dispersed to begin the first of the two two-day matches that they will be playing over the next four days. It’s become traditional to invite a guest speaker to address the boys at the event, and there have been some big names in cricket doing that down the years. Temba Bavuma has been here, as has Jacques Rudolph and Heinrich Klaasen.This year it was one of South Africa’s very best - Kagiso Rabada.

St Benedict’s College are the 2026 St David’s Marist Inanda Challenge Cup champions. They beat St John’s 2-0 in the final on Sunday to claim their second title in the competition - they last won it in 2017.They were good value for their win. They went through the preliminary pool stage unbeaten, to top their group and then beat St Alban’s 1-0 in the quarter-final and St Peter’s 5-0 in the semis.

St John’s College and St Benedict’s will contest the final of the 2026 St David’s Marist Inanda Challenge Cup. 

St John’s eliminated the hosts in the semi-finals, in a penatly shoot-out, after the sides were locked on 0-0 at the end of normal time. Both goalkeepers saved one shot, 

The 2026 St David’s Marist Inanda Challenge Cup kicked off in balmy weather in Sandton on Friday, and the players took advantage of the conditions to produce some excellent soccer and there were several close results.