With the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 blasting off in South Africa in a week's time, it was The Amakhosi players turn to get involved in the swing of things so to speak on Tuesday afternoon when courtesy of Chiefs sponsors Standard Bank who incidentally also the sponsor of the South African cricket team.

A handful of Chiefs players took part in an impromptu game of cricket, as the training ground at Naturena was converted for a brief period of time into a cricket pitch, with Shaun Bartlett and Kaizer Motaung Junior guiding cricket novices Moketi Tsotetsi and David Obua through various batting and bowling routines.

Tsotetsi a natural

He may be new at Chiefs but Tsotetsi has fitted in well at the centre of defense for The Amakhosi, and on Tuesday he demonstrated his ability to pick up skills easily when he, without much coaching, took on the gloves and stood wicket keeper, looking like a professional wicket keeper who had been behind the stumps for many years.

Commenting on his first experience as a wicketkeeper and playing the game of cricket, Tsotetsi said: “I enjoyed myself on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun as I have never played cricket before, it was nice to learn something new about the game.”

Some quick coaching from a member of the Kaizer Chiefs staff who will remain anonymous, helped Moketi spin Bartlett in a web of confusion with some outstanding spin bowling.

“Someone whose name will not be let out of the bag gave me a quick lesson in spin bowling, and I must say I had Bartlett frustrated, he could not get the bat onto the ball. It was a wicket maiden as we would say in cricket terminology”.

Motaung bowls them over

Motaung Junior was quite an acclaimed cricketer in his youth as he represented the old Transvaal Cricket Board as it was known back in the 1990’s at junior level. He also walked out on the famous hallowed turf of the Lords Cricket Ground in London when he represented his Harrow High School against their famous rivals Eton in a match played at the historical venue about seven years ago.

Motaung easily got into the swing of things on Tuesday and even though he might not have held a cricket bat or bowled a ball in many years, he did manage to pull off some magnificent stroke play and bowled a couple of maiden overs in the process.

After he had completed his time out in the middle, Kaizer told kaizerchiefs.com “I had a really wicked time on Tuesday it was really great to know that I have not lost some of the touches which I had back in high school, it was fun to get to knock the old willow around again.”

Standard bank happy with synergy

It was thanks to Chiefs sponsors Standard Bank, who also sponsor the ICC World Twenty20 and the South African cricket team, who were part of the brains behind starting the highly popular 20-over version of the game that have made it possible for The Amakhosi and the South African Cricket team to have closer links over the past few months.

Back in February, the Chiefs team paid a visit to the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg as they saw off the South African Cricket team just prior to their departure to the Caribbean for the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Andisa Ntsubane of Standard Bank Group Sponsorship division said on Tuesday, “As a sponsor of these two great sporting entities we are happy to see that there is room for a lot of cross synergy between Chiefs and the South African cricket team. Over the past few months we have worked on creating a closer understanding between the two codes.

"We are grateful to Chiefs for allowing their players the time to participate in this promotional game, and a number of the Chiefs players have indicated that they would like to attend some Twenty20 matches. Obviously we are delighted that The Chiefs guys know so much about the Twenty20, because it demonstrates that this version of the game of cricket is highly popular and enjoyed by a large audience around the country.”