‘One-woman team’: Cricketer scores 160 but rest of players get ducks

Have you ever played in one of those games where you wonder why the rest of your team-mates bothered turning up at all? Well spare a thought for Mpumalanga batter Shania-Lee Swart, who was the only player to score a run as she hit 160 from 86 balls in a 42-run victory over Easterns during Cricket South Africa’s Under-19s week in Pretoria on Monday. Her score is 15 runs below the world best T20 score set by West Indies great Chris Gayle playing in the Indian Premier League in 2013. But all the more remarkable was that Swart’s score came in a team total of 169-8 and each and every one of her team-mates to get a bat returned to the pavillion without adding a single run. Swart hit 18 fours and 12 sixes in her innings with the remaining nine runs coming in the form of a leg-bye, five wides and three no-balls. Her biggest partnership of 61 runs came for the ninth wicket alongside Nicholate Phiri, who only faced three balls and of course failed to score. Swart went on to open the bowling for Mpumalanga as well and returned excellent figures of 2-21 in her four overs.