Tuffey in a rush as New Zealand scramble home

New Zealand quick Daryl Tuffey didn't have much of a game as a bowler against the Border Invitation XI out at Alice on Friday, but he came good as a lower order batsman to clump the tourists to a two-wicket victory that had seemed, 10 overs before the end, most unlikely.

Quite how many Tuffey scored off the 34 balls he faced is a matter for some conjecture. The two official scorers at the Ntselamanzi Cricket Ground had him down at 38 and 39 respectively. The television scorers gave him 40 as did CricInfo. What was important, however, was the winning boundary he hit off the last ball of the 49th over to take New Zealand past Border's 226 for eight.

Tuffey had taken something of a crunching earlier on a bleak and cold day as Border opener Laden Gamiet laid into him fiercely. Gamiet's 84 was his highest provincial score and although there wasn't a great deal of support for him from his team-mates down the order, Border at least had a defendable total.

The NCG pitch had raised any number of eyebrows before the start of play, but rather than going all over the place, the ball kept low and just as Nathan Astle's gentle medium pace earned him four wickets in the Border innings, so Steven Pope's dobbers proved too much for New Zealand.

Pope took four for 41, after having only two limited overs wickets to his credit before the match, and until Tuffey went in it looked very much as if the home team were about to topple the ICC KnockOut 2000 champions.

In truth, though, this could hardly be classed a genuine international match. Aprt from the 11 they fielded, New Zealand could only have played Adam Parore. Of the extras, Chris Martin had a hamstring twitch, Brooke Walker an iffy shoulder and Hamish Marshall has a self-imposed spike gash on his leg.

The point of this type of match, then, is simply to cultivate the game among a largely rural, largely black population. There were probably fewer than 2 000 locals there on Friday, down from an estimated 7 000 who watched England last year, but horrible weather probably had something to do with this.

And, if nothing else, umpire Ntsikelelo Majiza had a match to remember. He gave six LBW decisions during the day (out of 16 wickets to fall), spreading his bounty evenly between Astle and Pope. He allowed Astle an 11th over instead of the regulation 10 and missed a fat edge off Craig McMillan's bat that could be heard from the boundary. McMillan had 18 at the time and went on to make 56, but he at least had the grace to apologise to bowler Pope for not walking.

Ambassadorial duties done, then, New Zealand now take on Border in a three-day game on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. If Martin is fit he could replace Shayne O'Connor, who needs a rest, in what would probably be the only change to the New Zealand team.