Rebel League - Round 1, Match 2: Australia Rebel XI vs South Africa XI
The Rebel League continues with the Australian Rebels (AI) playing the South Africa XI (Me).
South Africa won the toss and chose to bowl.
South Africa are controversially awarding full Springbok caps for the matches, and debutants Stephen Jefferies and Vincent Van der Bijl were given the new ball. Van der Bijl immediately caused trouble with his extra bounce and took a wicket in his first over as a bouncer got big on Steve Smith and he top-edged a cut which was smartly taken by keeper Ray Jennings.
Jefferies struggled to get the same control, pushing too many balls down the leg side from left-arm over. Van der Bijl was sticking to a short-ball theory, and John Dyson and Greg Shipperd were struggling to cope with exaggerated bounce.
Dyson was the more fluent of the two, and Australia reached 38/1 off the first 10 overs with Dyson on 22 and Shipperd on 10. Garth Le Roux replaced Jefferies and hit his straps immediately, and the scoring rate dropped further, just 10 runs coming off the next 4 and a half overs... with pressure rising, Van der Bijl dismissed Shipperd with an almost carbon copy of the Smith wicket, and Australia were on 48/2.
Captain Kim Hughes - wearing his Test Baggy Green - joined John Dyson. Van der Bijl had bowled a long spell, and was replaced by Procter. Procter and Le Roux were bowling extremely economically, and though neither Dyson or Hughes looked like getting out the scoring rate was slow. When Clive Rice replaced Procter the scoring slowed even further. When the innings reached the 30-over mark - a third of the way through - the score was just 2/86. Rice had conceded just 5 runs from 4 overs, and Le Roux just 9 from 6.
With Le Roux and Rice bowling so cheaply, it took a further 4 overs and 4 balls for Dyson and Hughes to score the further 12 runs to bring up the 50 partnership off 132 balls.
With a new ball due at 40 overs, South Africa Captain Mike Procter took a gamble and introduced part time spinner Peter Kirsten into the attack for Le Roux, gambling that he might prompt the batsmen to take a few more risks... sure enough the risk paid off with Dyson taking on a big shot to try and bring up his 50 but only finding Barry Richards in the deep, going for 47 off 112 balls to leave the score on 106/3
This brought South African-born Kepler Wessels to the crease, and the atmosphere cracked up a notch... Wessels started quickly, and coped well when Van der Bijl returned with the new ball and tested him against the short ball. Wessels was scoring relatively quickly and when the innings reached the halfway stage, the score was 144/3 with Wessels on 22 from 32.
Shortly after, Hughes went to his 50, off 100 balls.
Although there seemed to be little happening in terms of chances, and the partnership went past 50 and on towards 100, the scoring rate remained slow. Wessels in particular began to get bogged down... From 22 off 32, he went to 38 off 68 and then took an agonising 30 more balls in adding just 6 before Rice had him snaffled by Lawrence Seef at mid-on as he tried to break the shackles. The score was 205/4, the partnership being broken on 99.
Mike Haysman joined Hughes, with the day almost at an end 20 overs of the innings to play tomorrow. Could they get through to stumps without further loss and accelerate in the morning? The first part was helped as rain came in, closing the day 2 overs early with the Australians 209/4.
With day 2 starting, South Africa were probably the happier of the two sides having bowled very economically and restricted Australia to little more than 3 an over. However, Australia had 6 wickets in hand and one well set batsman so these next 20 overs would be critical. Could Australia accelerate?
Scoring quickly against this South African attack was easier said than done, and Hughes was caught between securing his ton or kicking the score on... ultimately he did neither, edging a ball from Procter on to his stumps to go for 97 with the score now 230/5.
Haysman was really struggling even to lay bat on ball, and a wild slash at another ball from Procter saw him caught behind by Jennings for 12 off 36 balls - a poor innings in the circumstances.
The score of 241/6 very nearly became 242/7 in the next over as Rice - still bowling extremely economically - induced Rixon to edge the first ball he faced, but Jennings put a difficult chance down.
After that Hohns and Rixon did their best to push things along but with Van der Bijl and Le Roux bowling the last 10 overs with a new ball, they had taken the score to just 275/6 at the innings closure.
South Africa will be very happy to have restricted Australia to a score under 300. However, Australia have a decent attack so until the Suuth African innings is finished it's hard to say definitively that they are on top.
when I say reverse I'm not sure if it actually reversed in terms of going in when I press for out, but I noticed I was getting a lot of swing from overs 20-40 (in my custom format new ball at 40 overs)
