After 10 attempts, and on the back of a superb bowling display from Andrew Hall, Easterns finally overcame their voodoo team, Boland, in a limited-overs cricket match at Willowmoore Park on Sunday.
The hosts won the thrilling encounter by four runs after they restricted Boland to 193 for seven in pursuit of Easterns’ 197 for eight.
Con de Lange had brought Boland to the cusp of victory when man of the match Hall wrested the match back in Easterns’ favour.
At that stage, the visitors needed just 13 from 12 balls to extend their record to 10 wins in a row.
However, De Lange, who had batted wonderfully well in making 57, struck the ball straight to Albie Morkel at midwicket. Hall, who ended with three for 31, followed that dismissal with an extremely tight over that realised only three runs.
Morkel then conceded just five runs in the last over to steer Easterns to the top of the limited-overs table.
At 114 for six though Easterns probably never expected such a tense conclusion to the game.
De Lange, however, found a more than able partner in Wallace Albertyn, adding 71 for the seventh wicket.
Easterns, after a promising start in which they had moved to 56 for two inside 11 overs, were perhaps fortunate to reach that tally of 197 after losing wickets with regularity during the middle of the innings.
While Pierre de Bruyn and Geoffrey Toyana arrested the slide with a 52-run stand for the sixth wicket, the urgency was provided by Dylan Jennings and a feverish ninth-wicket partnership between Gareth Flusk and Andre Nel.
Wicketkeeper Jennings made 23 from 21, and Nel and Flusk scampered between the wickets to add 36 at almost a run a ball. — Sapa