Northerns squeeze neighbours Easterns

Benoni - As you would expect from a neighbourly dust up, the little guys lost the first round and most likely the psychological battle as well as big brother Northerns backed Easterns into a corner at Willowmoore Park yesterday.

Not that they needed to assume the pose of your average play-ground bully: Northerns are a touch too professional to indulge in such tactics as they took control of their opening SuperSport Series game of the season. By the end of day two they had stretched their overall lead to 262 after they routed Easterns for a first innings total of 140 in performance which can be accurately described as being little better than you could expect from a club side. No doubt Northerns coach Peter Kirsten, not overly impressed with Northerns first innings total of 352 for eight, declared, would liked to have seen a faster run rate tempo in the second innings. After all, 50 without loss in a matter of 22 overs was not as dominant as he would have liked.

Northerns decision to bat a second time instead of forcing the follow on may surprise some but with a good ?middle net? on offer and a surface likely to be a touch dodgy from around lunch today, it was the better of the two options. Easterns top-order, however, buckled against the Northerns pace attack. Then again it is what could be expected as they failed to cope with the hostile pace of the Northerns trio of Greg Smith, Test cap Steve Elworthy, and David Townsend. Smith deserved far better figures than two for 34: a couple more wickets would not have gone amiss either, and he deserved them. Although he broke former Pakistan Test batsman Shakeel Ahmed?s nose with a delivery which the Northerns left-arm quick had lifting sharply and the batsman ducking into it. Smith?s pace was just a little too hot for Easterns to handle. The next delivery trapped Pierre de Bruyn lbw and at three for eight early in the sixth over Easterns were decidedly shaky. When he returned at the fall of the seventh wicket with a bleeding nose, Ahmed advanced his score to double figures but then forgot the basics when you have a runner and ventured out of his ground and was smartly run out by the quick thinking Gerald Dros.

At least Easterns did recover from a shaky 19 for four, although Northerns have become quite adept at stubbing out spirited revivals and yesterday's effort was no different to the rest, giving the `old boys' a bloodied nose. Easterns recovery was a rearguard effort of sorts with Aldo van den Berg driving handsomely at times. The youngster scored a century in the national club championship two weeks ago and yesterday put 41 against his name and with Albie Morkel added a spirited 49 for the seventh wicket. With seven bonus points to one and 10 for the outright looming, it has been a fairly easy ride.

Then again Northerns, posting their first innings score of 352 for eight, declared must have thought they had done more than enough. Kirsten though would have preferred 400 on the board by the time the declaration was made. Dros departed early for 67 and Johan Myburgh lost his wicket trying to follow the coach?s instructions when forcing the pace but his half-century in an A Section debut is the sort of batting to be admired of a young man with a lot of batting skills and who we know will make plenty of runs this season.