Centurion: While a pall of gloom hung over
the England dressing room last night, and most of it they would
have to admit is self-induced, Clive Eksteen finally managed to
take Mike Atherton’s wicket
Trevor Chesterfield21-Nov-1999Centurion: While a pall of gloom hung over
the England dressing room last night, and most of it they would
have to admit is self-induced, Clive Eksteen finally managed to
take Mike Atherton’s wicket. As the England XI stretched their
overall lead to 238 when they reached 136 for seven in the second
innings against the combined Northerns/Gauteng XI at SuperSport
Park yesterday, Eksteen extracted a small measure of revenge
which was not lost on the yobbo element in the crowd, when he had
the former England captain caught in the slips by Daryll
Cullinan.A pity the heavy cloud, which had been building since tea,
finally wiped a further 17 overs from the day’s play with Chris
Adams and Alex Tudor all too eager to accept the bad light offer.
It was Eksteen’s unsuccessful marathon duel with Atherton on the
last day of that second game of the series at the Wanderers four
years ago, now a part of modern Test folklore as the then England
captain batted all day, which led to the left-arm spinner’s last
appearance for South Africa. It still rankles with some and stirs
the memory for others who have less than generous thoughts for
Eksteen’s bowling abilities and tactics.At Centurion yesterday the tourists had reached 88 without loss
at the start of the 23rd over when Atherton dipped at a delivery
from the Combined XI’s captain only to find himself offering a
catch to Cullinan after a 94 minute innings for 39. Quite a
dashing effort from the tourists’ opener. After his departure the
innings went into sharp decline for the visitors, or if you
prefer improved for the locals who after being dismissed for 201
fought back to be in with a chance of a victory of they can only
get their batting act together.At one stage Mark Butcher, also on 39, Nasser Hussain, Alec
Stewart and Michael Vaughan all came and went in rapid succession
as first Eksteen and then Walter Masimula picked up wickets as
the visitors plunged 96 for four. Not the sort of parlous
position Duncan Fletcher, the England coach would have enjoyed.
It was all a matter of tight bowling, good fielding and poor shot
selection as at one stage Eksteen had the impressive figures of
three for 15 off 17 overs. That was before Andy Flintoff defaced
the figures with three boundaries which broke the stranglehold. A
six followed by a four and then a six took Flintoff into double
figures before he too perished one of the three Van Jaarsveld
catches in the innings.Masimula brought in as the late choice for Rudi Bryson had two
for 12 in 10 overs of tight bowling, but it was during a period
when Flintoff and Gavin Hamilton had to set about rebuilding the
innings. The loss of another wicket at this stage would have
dangerously exposed the injured Chris Adams and the tail.Steve Elworthy’s return, however, signalled the dismissal of both
batsmen through further excellent fielding efforts and tight
bowling. Hamilton went first, hitting on the up to Cullinan. It
could have been a third wicket for Elworthy but Eksteen’s
frantic, vain dive to take a chance offered first ball by Adams
at mid-off eluded the combined team’s skipper.But the fifth ball of the over Elworthy’s delivery to Flintoff
went to Van Jaarsveld and a totally different picture to that at
tea, when the score was 84 without loss, emerged after the
Combined XI innings also had a major hiccup in fortunes at the
start of the day. Neil McKenzie and Steve Elworthy apart, along
with some help from a wayward Alex Tudor and a dodgy couple of
overs from Darren Gough, the combined team’s first innings was a
feeble effort.More had been expected of Van Jaarsveld whose patience was
finally worn wafer thin after 112 minutes of batting and an
attempted drive caught the bottom of the bat to present Atherton
with a simple enough catch at second slip. There were times when
he drove that he looked as flowing as the nearby Hennops River.
An inability to find the gap though also reduced his run-scoring
opportunities and he seemed reluctant to go for the cut.McKenzie departed without offering a shot to Gough and not even
the young man who had earlier this year transferred his talents
from Gauteng to Northerns could quibble about Wilf Diedricks’
awarding the Yorkshireman the decision. In contrast to his
aggressive flair and accomplished strokeplay of Friday, McKenzie
seemed to Iack the conviction to go for his strokes while his
replacement, Nic Pothas was fluent enough when going forward to
drive Gough. It was only when Elworthy arrived with the
scoreboard looking a forlorn 130 for five in the 47th over that
the tall all-rounder took charge. He first saw Pothas depart to
one of Stewart’s five catches during a particularly impressive
spell of bowling from Gavin Hamilton.Van Jaarsveld’s wicket was Hamilton’s second of the innings and
came during a fine spell of bowling from the Yorkshire
all-rounder: figures of 7-5-7-2 were quite remarkable on a sunny
morning after he took over from Andrew Caddick at the Hennops
River end. He was forced to hobble off after dropping an Elworthy
top edge off Tudor’s bowling and as a precaution remained off the
field to the remainder of the Combined XI’s innings.As competitive as they come Hamilton’s efforts may have helped
him earn a Test cap, having earlier played for Scotland in the
World Cup this year. Fortune favoured Elworthy though. Dropped
twice on four the first by Hamilton off Caddick when the score
was 137 for five and then two runs later when the Yorkshire
all-rounder misjudged the catch, he slapped Gough around with the
sort of stylish aplomb you might expect from Cullinan. Gough,
brought back for a pre-lunch spell to supposedly hasten the end
of the innings, began with a wide.It then got better, for Elworthy, and worse, for Gough. Four
fours in the extended over was the sort of aggression needed to
lift the tempo of a sagging run rate and a total which was
struggling to reach 150. A cover drive, and off-drive a smack
through mid-wicket was not the sort what England’s captain
Hussain wanted or needed.Gough’s next over received equally rough treatment and he was
soon replaced after giving away six fours half the number taken
off his bowling in the innings. Elworthy was good value though.
He drove comfortably, and often, into the gaps and eight fours
was the sort of good value for his efforts and tactical presence
in terms of scoring runs when they were needed. Before he
perished after a 70 minutes duel which earned him 43 runs off 56
balls, he had seen the score reach 191.
