da betcris： Facing a huge Matabeleland total of 598, Midlands responded quite well butnot yet well enough, as they finished the day on 243 for four wickets
da bwin： John Ward12-Apr-2003Facing a huge Matabeleland total of 598, Midlands responded quite well butnot yet well enough, as they finished the day on 243 for four wickets. Thehighlight was a fighting maiden century by their wicketkeeper AlesterMaregwede.Matabeleland, beginning the day at 497 for six and no doubt with a massivetotal in mind, were shocked in the first over of the second day’s play.Sherezad Shah, after two sessions without an over after unsuccessfullyopening the attack 24 hours earlier, discovered the yorker to good effect.First he caused Keith Dabengwa (33) to play the ball on to his stumps, andtwo balls later trapped new batsman Piet Rinke lbw, all without addition tothe overnight score. Immediately, for some reason, the umpires changed theball!Suddenly finding he had only two partners left, Gavin Ewing, 154 overnight,decided to attack. He got away with a few risky strokes but then, asJordane Nicolle looked solid, settled down again. Nicolle actually did moreof the scoring, making 31 in an hour before being bowled by a ball fromleft-arm spinner Dirk Viljoen that spun sharply and clipped his off bail.Matabeleland were 554 for nine.Last man Norman Mukondiwa hung on gamely as Ewing moved slowly towards hisdouble-century. Finally, a hard pull to square leg, from whose thigh theball rebounded, brought him to 200. Mukondiwa then felt free to indulgehimself a bit, with two lofted boundaries in the rest of the over. Ewingnever quite regained his momentum, apart from a six over extra cover, and hefinally fell to a catch in the covers for 212. He hit 19 fours and 5 sixesin his innings. The team innings closed on 598 with three wickets each forShah and Sibanda, but no bowler was ever really threatening.Midlands, facing an uphill struggle, lost opener Luther Mutyambizi in thesecond over, driving loosely to be caught overhead at cover. There were acouple of frenzied, overexcited appeals from the rampant Matabele team, butthe umpires withstood the pressure and Vusi Sibanda (10) and Terry Duffin(1) held out until lunch.Midlands picked up the scoring rate after lunch, with an interesting battlebetween Nicolle, bowling bouncers with two fielders, and then three, on theleg boundary, and Sibanda, who was willing to take him on and did sosuccessfully for a while.The pair added 51 before Duffin was given out caught down the leg side offRinke, and immediately afterwards Sibanda hooked once too often and holedout on the leg boundary off Nicolle. Midlands were suddenly 56 for three.Viljoen and Maregwede slowly but steadily repaired the innings, though, withquiet, sensible batting, waiting for the bad ball to punish, although notalways as severely as it might have been. Maregwede reached his fifty justafter tea and was then dropped off a firm pull straight to square leg.They continued in the same mode and Matabeleland, becoming desperate, made aferocious appeal for a catch at bat-pad off Ewing when Maregwede was on 88,but it was firmly rejected. As in the Matabeleland innings, much of thebowling was being done by spinners, who were getting some turn, but thepitch was too slow to hurry the batsmen. Ewing followed his double-centurywith a long spell of off-spin bowling, and the batsmen had to play him withcare, but he is not a big spinner of the ball and tended to bowl too manyfull tosses. Patience was the key and the batsmen had it.Finally, after three hours, a lofted straight drive off Barney Rogersbrought Maregwede his maiden first-class century. It came off 158 balls andhe was always the more fluent of the two, as Viljoen allowed him his head.Most of his runs came on the leg side. Soon afterwards, though, he moveddown to drive Ewing without getting to the pitch of the ball and edged acatch to slip. He departed for 105, including 14 fours and a six, and DonCampbell (4) saw out the day with Viljoen (69).
