South Africa A romped to an inevitable 10-wicket victory over New Zealand A on the third day of their four-day Castle Lager/MTN ”Test” at Willowmoore Park on Thursday, after getting the visitors out for 127 in their second innings, on a day that saw 14 wickets fall.
South Africa A, needing just 36 to win, knocked off the winning runs in 24 minutes, with more than a day to spare. AB de Villiers scored 32 runs off 20 balls, including five balls, and Andrew Puttick contributed three.
Earlier, New Zealand A took just 68 minutes to mop up the South African tail.
Starting the day on 292/6 in their first innings, South Africa A were all out for 318, giving them a lead of 92 runs. Albie Morkel was caught by James Franklin off Richard Sherlock for 19.
Kerry Walmsley took two wickets to add to the two he took on Wednesday, capturing the scalps of Hashim Amla, caught by Matthew Sinclair for four, and Garnett Kruger, caught behind by Gareth Hopkins for nought.
Alfonso Thomas was caught by Sinclair off Chris Martin for four, and Paul Adams was not out on seven.
On a pitch that was becoming increasingly difficult to play on, New Zealand struggled throughout the innings against some aggressive bowling from Garnett Kruger (3/42) and Albie Morkel (4/20). Zander de Bruyn took 3/31, and at one stage was on a hat-trick, after capturing the wickets of Peter Fulton (24) and Paul Wiseman (0).
But Kerry Walmsley safely negotiated the hat-trick ball and went on to make the only reasonable partnership of the innings, putting on 46 runs with Gareth Hopkins for the eighth wicket.
Kruger made the first breakthrough, when Matthew Bell was caught by De Villiers for five in the fifth over. This started the Kiwi procession.
Jon How went next, caught by De Bruyn off Morkel for three. Matthew Sinclair was caught by de Villiers off Morkel for 14, Lou Vincent was out leg before wicket to Kruger for one and Peter Fulton was caught and bowled by De Bruyn for 24.
Walmsley was top scorer for the visitors, with 28.
South African A coach Ray Jennings was clearly delighted with the outcome of the match.
”We played a good game and I was happy with the intensity of the way the team played,” he said. ”Some players, like [Ashwell] Prince, [Neil] McKenzie, Kruger and Puttick had particularly good games.”
But Jennings said he was not happy with the slip fielding, where at least six catches were dropped.
”This is not good enough, and we will be working on this before the next match,” he said. ”There will have to be a huge improvement in this area.”
The third four-day match begins in Potchefstroom on Monday. — Sapa