South Africa end day in stronger position

South Africa under-19 finished the first day of the second Youth Test with New Zealand under-19 far better than they could have imagined when struggling at 106/6 at BIL Oval at Lincoln University near Christchurch today.

The saviour for the tourists, who lost the first Test last week, was Johan Botha who scored 101 with his century coming off 165 balls and after 224 minutes at the crease. He hit 15 fours in his innings which helped South Africa finish the day at 294/8.

Botha was out when top-edging an attempted pull shot to short third man where Ross Taylor held the catch from Sam Whiteman's bowling.

If New Zealand thought the breakthrough had come with the score 237/8, Imran Khan and Gerhard de Bruin had other thoughts as they produced a spirited tail-end stand of 57 unbroken runs.

De Bruin chanced his arm and hit six fours in his 38 from 48 balls while Khan was 20 not out from 71 balls with only two fours in his innings.

Of the New Zealand bowlers, who had to toil through some of the hottest conditions of Canterbury's summer, Taraia Robin was unlucky to see his last two overs go for 19 runs, although he still finished with the respectable figures of one for 48 from 20 overs.

New Zealand is adopting the injury prevention plan for its bowlers with no-one allowed to bowl more than 20 overs in a day, in a maximum of eight overs per spell.

Ian Butler had the greatest success with three for 65 from 18 overs while Greg Todd had two for 50 from his 14.