/ 22 January 2007

Provincial cricketers robbed at gunpoint

Members of the Cape Cobras provincial cricket team were held up at gunpoint at a Nando’s fast-food restaurant near the airport in Johannesburg on Saturday night and robbed of their wallets, watches and cellphones, the Cape Times reported on Monday.

The robbers then locked the cricketers in the restaurant’s walk-in freezer with other customers and staff members, the report said.

Members of the team who were present were batsman Con de Lange, veteran bowler and batsman Charl Willoughby, top-order batsman and spin-bowler Henry Davids, batsman Alistair Gray, batsman Dominic Telo, fast-bowler Vernon Philander and left-hand opener André Puttick, as well as a young player who finished school last year, Robert van der Ross.

”They will be getting trauma counselling [on Monday]. Their relatives in the Cape are obviously quite shaken and will also need counselling,” said the team’s coach, Shukri Conrad. — Sapa