Castle Test Cricket: South Africa Dominant

South Africa is in a dominant position at the close of play on the first day of the third and final Castle Test match at Sahara Park Newlands, Cape Town. Ricky Ponting won toss and elected to bat first, perhaps not the best decision. A poor start in the field saw South Africa drop two catches, while the Australians moved on to 58/0. Imraan Kahn dropped a sitter and JP Duminy dropped Hughes off Paul Harris. Harris stepped up and took the wicket of Hughes two balls later to open the wicket taking.

One run later and Ricky Ponting was walking back to the Pavilion with a duck next to his name. The highest scorer for Australia was Katich who was out for 55 off 160 balls.

Jacques Kallis captained the team well and had the Australians all out for 209, an hour before the end of the day. Enter Imraan Kahn and Ashwell Prince, the expectation to score was high after scoring a big century and a double century respectively. Prince led the partnership scoring freely to take play to a close with South Africa on 57/0. Prince had scored 37 runs from 36 balls in a powerful batting display.

South Africa are 157 runs behind, if Prince picks up where he left off the Australians are going to be in trouble by lunch on day two.

All the rumors of unhappiness in the team have been put to rest by an inspiring batting performance, now we need to keep or heads and add 300 runs on day two to setup a powerful first innings lead.

Bowling performances from South Africa:

Steyn: 16 overs, 56 runs, 4 wickets
Ntini: 17 overs, 38 runs, 2 wickets
Kallis: 10 overs, 31 runs, 0 wickets
A Morkel: 12 overs, 44 runs, 1 wicket
Harris: 17 overs, 34 runs, 3 wickets

Standard Bank Pro20 explodes, goes to power over

The Standard Bank Pro20 series exploded this evening, in what could never have been scripted both 3rd leg semifinals were tied, with a power over deciding the out come.

The Gestetner Diamond Eagles stole the game from the Cheverolet Warriors in the power over, Dillon du Preez performed under pressure in the power over hitting a 6 from the first ball, with partner R Bailey they hit 16 runs off the over.

All the pressure was on the Warriors, and after their early celebrations they were just not focused enough and didn’t come close to getting the 17 needed for victory.

All the excitement of the power over has cleared my memory of the actual game. The Warriors batted first but could only post a lowly 97 runs in 19.3 overs. Another stand out performance by the Eagles bowler CJ de Villiers taking 5 wickets for just 12 run in 3.3 overs.

The Eagles could have put this one away easily, but the found themselves 11/3. Dippenaar and Elger came together and steadied the ship, the Warriors fought hard through Juan Theron’s bowling. when the Eagles got a single off the last ball, the Warriors burst into premature celebration thinking they had won the 3 leg semifinals.

The Eagles will now travel to Cape Town to face the Cape Cobras.

Just as we were recovering from that tied match the Nashua Dolphins and the Nashua Cape Cobras also played their game to a tie. The Dolphins needed 17 runs off the last over which they got to the amazement of the crowd.

Then the power over came, the tension built, even more drama was about to unfold. Dolphins batted first and only managed to make 3 runs, Jayasuryia out, bowled first ball. Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith came to the wicket only needing 4 runs off 6 balls, the drama continued, Smith was run out at the non strikers end on the first ball. Gibbs thrives under pressure, he took two runs from the third ball and the next one went for four. Gibbs and Grant Rowley had a heated argument after the winning boundary.

During the game the Cape Cobras posted a defensible 148. with JP Duminy again top scoring with 53, well supported by Justin Ontong’s 44 and another solid 34 from the captain Graeme Smith.

The Dolphins struggled loosing HD Ackerman and Jayasuriya very early, but it was Johann louw that hit 17 runs from the last over to take it to the power over.

So the Final will be in Cape Town, Saturday 21st at 17h30. Nashua Cape Cobras vs The Gestetner Diamond Eagles.

Proteas go No. 1

The Standard Bank ODI Proteas team moved to number 1 on the ODI world ranking after beating the Australian team on Friday night. The Proteas won the series 4-1 completing a record breaking tour down under.

The Proteas posted 288 runs as they batted first, Hashim Amla fell 3 runs short of scoring a century as he was out for 97 caught to Haddin off the bowling of Hopes. Amla and AB de Villiers partnered well with AB getting 60 runs and the now ever present JP Duminy hit 60*.

The Australians fought hard but were not up the challenge as debutant Tsotsobe took 4 wickets for 50 runs, Michale Hussy put in yet another quality performance scoring 78 runs albeit it at a slow strike rate.

This was one of the youngest team South Africa had fielded in a long time, but it showed that we have depth with in our team. This tour brougt JP Duminy into the international fold, leaving JP out of any future team will be a difficult decision. It’s was also a display of quality coaching and team management, Cricket South Africa will be wanting to keep this winning formula together until the World Cup 2011.