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Jacques Rudolph was probably being excessively colourful when he once referred to Benonis Willowmoore Park as varkpan. Translated from the Afrikaans, varkpan literally means pig tray in English. A generation of young white South African men conscripted during the 1980s knows them well, because varkpans were the compartmentalised stainless steel trays into which your daily meals were slopped. They are symbols of an age, much like lockers and infantry browns. To the male South African mind they say much about the exercise of arbitrary power, meaninglessness and fear. They are anything but neutral.Call me perverse, but contrary to Rudolphs deep love of the place, Ive always liked Willowmoore Park. I like the fact that that if you screw your neck around from the far corner of the ground and look east, you can see Benonis famous mine dump, its yellow sands quietly blowing away in the spring winds.I like the fact that the western grandstand probably dates back from the 1930s, and if you look into the underside of the roof you can see a crazy quilt of supporting girders, many of which look strangely superfluous, and so give an impression of post-Edwardian vanity. Its like looking into another way of seeing the world - or another mind - and its pricelessly and utterly charming.The ground even used to have a beautiful arch at its main entrance, with the words Willowmoore Park suspended over your head in red art-deco letters. Upon visiting the ground last week, when Australia played Ireland in an ODI, I noticed to my disappointment that one couldnt see the letters anymore because they had been blocked out by a massive sign for Sahara computers. Such is the authorities approach to cricket heritage.Built in the 1920s on a drained marsh - or vlei in Afrikaans - the ground is so called because willows used to line one side of the field, and one of Benonis founding fathers was a man called Moore. It hosted pretty much everything in the early days. Athletics was a regular feature, and in 1948, Denis Compton toyed with the North Eastern Transvaal bowling by taking 300 runs off them in just over three hours. Having scored 42 fours and five sixes, his hair was probably perfectly in place when he strode back to the pavilion for a cup of tea and a fag.Comptons Arsenal never played at varkpan, but the following decade saw a variety of visiting English football teams: Newcastle United, Wolves, and Bolton Wanderers. With big Scottish and English immigrant populations working on the mines, football was big in these parts, but as gold yields lessened, so the sport faded.The local club was called Benoni FC, and at one point Denis Lindsay, the South African wicketkeeper-batsman of the 1960s, played as their goalkeeper. Denis was the son of Johnny Lindsay, who toured England with South Africa in 1947. When Johnny retired, he became the unofficial Willowmoore Park groundsman and designed the floodlights that remain today. The concrete pylons on which the lights are supported arent beautiful, but they are solid and durable, much like the stock from which North Eastern Transvaal traditionally drew their players. Benoni tracks have always had a reputation for being sporty, partly because the water table is so close to the grounds surface. The story is told of a match in 1968 when Denis Lindsay was playing alongside Hylton Ackerman, Jackie Botten and Jim Presdee for North Eastern Transvaal against visiting Eastern Province. The men from Port Elizabeth had Peter Pollock, Alan Hector and Sibley McAdam in their midst, and so the hosts were quietly relieved when it started raining.It rained so torrentially that one afternoon both teams took themselves off to the local cinema to watch The Dirty Dozen, with Lee Marvin, Telly Savalas and Charles Bronson. Suddenly this message comes across the bottom of the screen, Peter Barrable, who played for North Eastern Transvaal in the match, once told me. Will the cricketers please return to the ground? Play is about to begin.Despite the reservations of Peter van der Merwe, the EP skipper, the match started, with Province being bowled out for 53 and the hosts cobbling together 41. In the second innings, I remember taking Peter Pollock on the body for an hour - I was black and blue, said Barrable.Although Willowmoore Park is a secondary ground, there is talk in South African cricket circles of the franchise system being expanded in the 2017-18 season. In all likelihood that would mean a team of their own for Easterns, which is good news for one of the largest urban provinces in the country, with an unusually large black cricket-playing population. I cant see the current system going up [from six] to eight teams, said a local administrator, so the logical next step is to shoot it up to 12. That way we can keep some of the kids who are heading to England and New Zealand but also give more opportunities to players of colour. Its a win-win at that level. The only problem is does it dilute our first-class competition too much? Ronde Barber Womens Jersey . 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Gidron Pope - Rangpur RidersWe are not going to see anyone more powerful than this kid in this World Cup or the next one , was how Ian Bishop described Gidron Pope following his blistering knocks at the top of the order in West Indies title-winning run at the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh earlier this year. The 19-year-old opener struck 232 runs in six innings at an average and strike rate of 38.66 and 107.90 respectively. He is also a livewire on the field, and can pitch in with right-arm offspin.Mohammad Shahzad - Rangpur RidersPlaced ninth on the ICC rankings in T20 internationals, Afghanistans Mohammad Shahzad owns the seventh-highest score and second-highest by an Associate player in T20 internationals. Shahzad is not just about brutal leg-side hoicks and the whippy helicopter shots. He is equally capable of lofting the ball in the V. With Sharjeel Khan not receiving a NOC from the PCB and asked to train for the New Zealand tour instead, Shahzad is expected to be Rangpurs key figure.Tymal Mills - Chittagong VikingsTymal Mills is among the most exciting T20 players in the world. He can bowl yorkers or bouncers at speeds north of 90mph. Ask Graeme Swann or Chris Gayle: A 94.5mph bouncer smacked Swanns arm and sent him to the hospital in 2013, while more recently at the NatWest T20 Blast, Mills yorked Gayle with a 93.3mph thunderbolt. He also has a deceptive slower ball, which will probably be more crucial on the sluggish surfaces in Bangladesh.Having prematurely retired from first-class cricket because of a congenital back condition, Mills hopes to establish himself as a potent force in T20s. He is set to play for Auckland in the Super Smash and Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League later this season.Nicholas Poorann - Khulna TitansWicketkeeper-batsman Nicholas Pooran was all of 17 when he flayed a 24-ball 54 against Guyana Amazon Warriors that had in their ranks Sunil Narine, Veerasammy Permaul, James Franklin and Mohammed Hafeez, in CPL 2013.dddddddddddd. His breakthrough CPL season, however, arrived in 2016 when he made 217 runs in eight innings at a strike rate close to 200. He went on to make his T20 debut for West Indies in the UAE in September this year, but struggled against spin - or the lack of it - in conditions not conducive to big-hitting. The BPL now gives him a chance to improve his game on this front.Evin Lewis - Dhaka DynamitesAfter scoring his first T20 hundred - 101 not out off 65 balls - in the 2015-16 Bangladesh Premier League, Evin Lewis said: Chris Gayle is my favorite. I hit a lot of sixes, big sixes like him... its a dream for me to open with him, and hopefully that will happen. He then replaced his injured idol and struck a 49-ball century, the sixth-fastest in T20Is in Lauderhill in August this year. The knock was studded with nine sixes, including five in a Stuart Binny over.Liam Dawson - Rangpur Riders A last-minute addition to the Rangpur squad, England allrounder Liam Dawson struck in each of his first three overs on T20I debut against Sri Lanka in front of his home crowd in Southampton. His figures of 3 for 27 turned out to be the best by a England spinner on T20I debut. In addition to bowling left-arm spin, Dawson can bat anywhere in the line-up. A few sparkling performances in the BPL can help him catch up with Adil Rashid, Englands first-choice spinner, in limited-overs cricket. ' ' '