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

Imraan Khan scores century

Imraan Khan scored his fifth century of the season today, ensuring that he wasn’t out done by Ashwell Prince’s 254 for the Warriors. Khan’s century came from 175 balls, he ended the day on 135 not out. Both players were named in the squad to take on Australia in the third and final test match at Newlands. It seems that some players only need a sniff at a chance of playing for the Proteas to up their game.

It’s great to see South Africa has depth, we’ll be expecting big things from these to players that seem to be in fine form.

Unfortunately there hasn’t been much to write about when it comes to bowling in Super Sport series, the only noticeable performance came from Yusuf Abdullah, taking 5 wickets from 63 runs in 19 overs for the Dolphins.

Who is Imraan Kahn

Imraan Kahn was named in the Proteas test squad for the third and final Castle Test match, we looked up Imraan Kahn and found out what he’s done to get picked.

Imraan Khan:

Date of birth	27 Apr 84 – Durban
Batting style	Left-hand batsman
Bowling style	Right-arm off break
First class debut	2003/04
School	Durban High School

08/09 Super Sport series

Name	Team	M	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	SR	100	50
I Khan	Dol	7	12	2	601	122	60.1	42.4	3	2

First Class Career

Name	Team	M	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	SR	100	50
I Khan	Dol	62	105	11	3577	150	38.05	46.16	6	23

Imraan Khan scored century against the Australians in a Castle three-day match at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom. The left-hander seized the opportunity on a glorious day for batting, hitting 86 runs before lunch and further added 14 runs before he was out to Peter Siddle for exactly 100 (106 balls, 18 boundaries).

Imraan Khan led South Africa’s Under-19 team on their tour of England in 2003