Gauteng batting blues in Centurion

Centurion (South Africa) - Any thought the national selectors may have had that David Terbrugge would need an extra game to challenge for a place in the South African side to play Zimbabwe at the end of this month were almost put to rest in Centurion yesterday.

The same cannot be said about their batsmen who seemed to be suffering from a dose of Kimberly run glut as a Northerns attack, misfiring and hobbling along without an injured Steve Elworthy, had the visitors battling at 212 for six at the close of day two of this SuperSport Series outing.

Northerns held the bonus points lead 6-3 and could stretch this further today despite the absence of Elworthy, who injured ankle tendons in Thursday's after-match cool down session and was unable to bowl. Whether it was because of his absence that Greg Smith showed signs of being a nervous rookie, or the sight of Clive Rice, one of the national selectors looking on, is hard to tell, but it was not at all a good start.

As it is Northerns, dismissed for 396, still have a lead of 184, quite handy when you look at it. And the way the Gauteng batsmen played themselves into form on the flatbed in Kimberley last weekend where they scored three centuries and comments from their supporters after Smith's first over suggested another river of runs would flow.

They left Centurion last night with only a seventh wicket partnership of 55 to remove some of the chagrin at the way their middle-order collapsed with indecent haste. Nic Pothas and Andrew Hall battled their way through the sort of face-saving partnership which added a certain amount of technical skill to the rebuilding needed to earn a second batting point.

Then again, on a day when more was expected of them 12 wickets fell in what was not a great batting display by either side and Terbrugge executed an excellent display of bowling to return five for 45 off 32 overs: tight, controlled and aggressive.

Once he knocked out Kevin McKenzie's off-stump with 175 against the batsman's name, the Northerns innings went into labour. The product was the loss of six wickets for 62 runs with Johan Myburgh scoring 32 and Elworthy 22 about the best of what was a feeble effort.

Any hope that McKenzie would go on to score a double century and help Northerns build a total in excess 400 departed with Terbrugge, his former Rau teammate, penetrated his defences after a stay of 442 minutes, adding only nine to his overnight score of 166.

At least McKenzie, doubling up as the third seamer in Elworthy's absence, curbed the Gauteng response as Adam Bacher and Sven Koenig, with Smith going for 29 in his first two overs, was as impressive as was his big ton on Thursday. It was a tidy enough job and the Northerns skipper, Mark Davis, showed remarkable faith in the 23-year-old who has rarely bowled at this level of the game.

Davis, however, showed his flair as a captain and picked up two wickets for 40 in his 17 overs yesterday, trusting Smith and David Townsend to bowl second spells which led to the Gauteng batting failure. Smith bagged both Bacher and Koenig's wickets and Townsend picked up Seymore's wicket when Rudolf Steyn pulled off a stunning catch at deep point. With Ken Rutherford trapped lbw for two by Townsend and Daryll Cullinan falling 18 runs later for 28, Gauteng's innings was falling apart.

Cullinan was lucky to escape an earlier dismissal when the wicketkeeper, Mpho Pedi, put down a chance off Davis' bowling. When Pedi made up for the misdemeanour the three test batsmen had contributed 63 runs to the total: far from what you would expect from batsmen of their class.