Playing his 150th first-class match, Sunfoil Dolphins opening batsman Imraan Khan was unfortunate to miss out on a well-deserved century.
He was dismissed for 90 on the opening day of the Sunfoil Series match against the Warriors at Buffalo Park, East London, yesterday.
The visitors, who batted steadily all day on a pitch offering very little help to the bowlers advanced to a total of 289/4 at stumps after 96 overs.
The Warriors, who have been unable to win any of their previous five matches in the series, lost the toss, and spent the day in the field, with their seven bowlers toiling hard for wickets.
There was a setback when international spinner Simon Harmer took over the captaincy after regular skipper Colin Ingram was ruled out with a knee injury which is likely to keep him off the field for the rest of the season.
Border medium-pacer Thandelwethu Mnyaka was awarded his Warriors cap after some excellent returns for the Border team.
Both openers played each ball on its merits in the morning session, choosing the right ball to hit and at the luncheon interval both Khan and his partner Sarel Erwee had managed to keep their wickets intact with the scoreboard showing 83 for no wicket after 29 overs – a solid foundation for a big score.
At that stage Khan had 47 and Erwee 30.
By tea-time, the unflappable former Test batsman had taken his score to 90 after batting for four hours 20 minutes.
He assisted the visitors to reach 173/1 at the break, after Erwee, at 142 after 48.2 overs, about halfway through the second session of the day, was out leg before wicket to Harmer.
Erwee’s neat 57 came off 129 balls with 10 fours.
Unfortunately Khan was unable to add to his tea-time score. Some excellent bowling by medium-pacer Jerry Nqolo both sides of the interval saw the youngster beat and bowl the experienced opener.
Khan faced 202 balls and reached the boundary 11 times, while hitting one six over the fence as well.
Nqolo also succeeded in getting rid of the Dolphins’ number four batsman, Khaya Zondo, who never looked happy at the crease.
He scored 16 before Harmer grabbed a slip catch out of nowhere to get rid of him.
Nqolo finished his fine spell with figures of 2/25 off 11 overs, two of which were maidens.
Dolphins’ number three Vaughn van Jaarsveld hit a solid 46 before he too became a Harmer victim, stumped by Gihan Cloete, keeping wicket for the Warriors.
This brought Daryn Smit and Morne van Wyk together and the two have so far added 56 entertaining runs with Van Wyk finishing the day on 45 not out while Smit has 12 not out.
The two will continue batting at 10am this morning.
Khan stumbles, falls short of 100
He was dismissed for 90 on the opening day of the Sunfoil Series match against the Warriors at Buffalo Park, East London, yesterday.
The visitors, who batted steadily all day on a pitch offering very little help to the bowlers advanced to a total of 289/4 at stumps after 96 overs.
The Warriors, who have been unable to win any of their previous five matches in the series, lost the toss, and spent the day in the field, with their seven bowlers toiling hard for wickets.
There was a setback when international spinner Simon Harmer took over the captaincy after regular skipper Colin Ingram was ruled out with a knee injury which is likely to keep him off the field for the rest of the season.
Border medium-pacer Thandelwethu Mnyaka was awarded his Warriors cap after some excellent returns for the Border team.
Both openers played each ball on its merits in the morning session, choosing the right ball to hit and at the luncheon interval both Khan and his partner Sarel Erwee had managed to keep their wickets intact with the scoreboard showing 83 for no wicket after 29 overs – a solid foundation for a big score.
At that stage Khan had 47 and Erwee 30.
By tea-time, the unflappable former Test batsman had taken his score to 90 after batting for four hours 20 minutes.
He assisted the visitors to reach 173/1 at the break, after Erwee, at 142 after 48.2 overs, about halfway through the second session of the day, was out leg before wicket to Harmer.
Erwee’s neat 57 came off 129 balls with 10 fours.
Unfortunately Khan was unable to add to his tea-time score. Some excellent bowling by medium-pacer Jerry Nqolo both sides of the interval saw the youngster beat and bowl the experienced opener.
Khan faced 202 balls and reached the boundary 11 times, while hitting one six over the fence as well.
Nqolo also succeeded in getting rid of the Dolphins’ number four batsman, Khaya Zondo, who never looked happy at the crease.
He scored 16 before Harmer grabbed a slip catch out of nowhere to get rid of him.
Nqolo finished his fine spell with figures of 2/25 off 11 overs, two of which were maidens.
Dolphins’ number three Vaughn van Jaarsveld hit a solid 46 before he too became a Harmer victim, stumped by Gihan Cloete, keeping wicket for the Warriors.
This brought Daryn Smit and Morne van Wyk together and the two have so far added 56 entertaining runs with Van Wyk finishing the day on 45 not out while Smit has 12 not out.
The two will continue batting at 10am this morning.
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