Cronje steers Free State home

Centurion: Hansie Cronje had one of those nights where he learnt the value of survival before he managed to ease Free State to their first victory of the day/night season.

Chasing a modest target of 191, the South African and Free State captain put together a match-winning 72 not out as the visitors beat Northerns by six wickets at SuperSport Park in the Standard Bank Cup series.

Not that it was quite the doddle the final result suggests and Cronje, having earned the benefit of a close lbw decision the first ball he faced, was also put down in the slips off Steve Elworthy's bowling, and escaped two near run outs. Once he had negotiated that dodgy passage he batted as you would expect the South African captain to bat.

He helped Kosie Venter, who shared the man of the match award, and his partner for much of the innings, to add 96 to set up the victory after Venter had also been involved in a solid second wicket effort of 51 against Northerns with Test cap Boeta Dippenaar. While Dippenaar did not look all that comfortable, Venter batted calmly and sensibly to reach his half century off 89 balls.

Cronje went to his 50 with a square cut and was dropped immediately after that with Elworthy wondering how he deserved such shoddy treatment.

Generally though Cronje was in control for much of his innings and it is easy to see why he is back in charge as the 72 was an accomplished enough effort.

Then again, as was the case in the outing against Eastern Province two weeks ago Northerns innings stuttered along, unable to find the right sort of gear in which to build a challenging total. Setting targets do not seem to fit comfortably within their game plan this season and the 190 was again 40 runs light.

If you cannot build partnerships, though, it is going to be a struggle to get any sort of total together, so apart from the 82 for fifth wicket between Gerald Dros and Martin van Jaarsveld, there was not too much to enthuse over.

Initially Donald's pace seemed to be too much for Dros, the batsman beaten as much for pace off the pitch as the Test fast bowler's knack to bowl back of a length. Then the tall middle-order batsman picked off 10 runs in two ball when he took a six off him with a well guided pull followed by as good as drive as any we saw in the game.

Both batsmen knew they had to take charge at some stage and Donald, back after an initial economical spell of five overs, went for plenty. Yet neither batsmen really dominated the way they can. They had to work for their runs and gave their wickets away when trying to step up the run rate as the overs were whittled away by Cronje's careful manipulation of the bowling attack.

Roy Pienaar went early, the victim of his eagerness to run the ball past slips only to see wicketkeeper Gerard Brophy gobble a simple catch. Rudolf Steyn, who has been in good nick this season, fell into the trap of trying to steering the ball straight at Gerhardus Liebenberg for another easy catch after working his way to 23. Neil McKenzie looked more composed, but 23 was as far as he was going to get.

And when Mike Rindel was bowled for 33 in the 22nd over, Northerns hopes of dominating a purposeful Free State bowling attack all but disappeared.

As usual the crowd became bored with itself and soon indulged in performing the unfashionable wave, which is about entertaining as watching yet another episode of Daffy Duck trying to fly to the moon.