Strange start to cricket season

A STRANGE day indeed heralded the start of the first-class cricket season yesterday, what with 19 wickets falling on Bloemfontein’s normally docile pitch and just five at the usually lively Wanderers.

The Warriors dismissed the Knights for 140 inside two sessions in Bloemfontein. But, by stumps, the visitors had dwindled to 136/9.

In Johannesburg, the Lions reached 271/5 against the Titans.

As bad as things were for the Knights, they could have been worse — they crashed to 32/8 before Corné Dry and Quinton Friend came up with a stand of 98, with Andrew Birch, Wayne Parnell and Basheeru-Deen Walters taking seven scalps.

Dry and Friend each scored 51 before being removed by Simon Harmer, who took 2/8 in 20 balls. Then Dry got back to his real job as a fast bowler and claimed 5/43 in reply.

The Warriors’ bowlers also found themselves having to do more than their fair share of the batting. Birch and Walters were two of their three visitors to pass 20 runs. The other was Colin Ingram.

Eight of the men dismissed in Bloemfontein were caught behind — an indication of the movement in the pitch. By contrast, it took the Titans more than 21 overs to separate openers Stephen Cook and Rassie van der Dussen. Only for Cook and Temba Bavuma to add 116 for the second wicket.

Shaun von Berg had Cook trapped in front for 56 and bowled Bavuma for 84 when he played back and down the wrong line.

Quinton de Kock scored a bright 51 off 61 balls with nine fours before he was bowled by Marchant de Lange.