South African Youths face long battle with bat

South Africa Under-19 faces a battle if it is to get out of the first Youth Test with New Zealand Under-19 unscathed over the next two days.

South Africa finally dismissed New Zealand for 400 today which gave the home team a first innings lead of 250. By stumps, South Africa was 72/2 with another 179 required to make New Zealand bat again.

The highlight of the day's play was undoubtedly an excellent 123 from the Otago and New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum, who sored his 100 off 97 balls. He kept his head down and concentrated well during a particularly hot day but also showed no mercy to the bad or, sometimes, average ball. He is most certainly a New Zealand player of the future.

Greg Todd 71, Ross Taylor 59 and Andrew Ellis 63 all made significant contributions to their team's most satisfactory total and Ellis provided fine support to McCullum during his innings.

The South African bowlers in the main toiled pretty well in the heat but Christo Karremaker and Ian Postman suffered a little from a McCullum onslaught with 2/120 and 0/90 respectively. Gerhard De Bruin's 3/54 from 25 overs, Warren Hauptfleish's 2/79 off 25 and Imraan Kahn"s 3/54 off 25 overs were fine efforts under the circumstances.

The South African fielding was not as sharp as New Zealand's but perhaps the length of their stay on the park could account for a degree of lethargy.

South Africa came out to bat in their second innings with a deficit of 250 and with almost certainly a long bat to wipe it off and to get New Zealand to go to the crease for their second innings.

A major disappointment and setback for them when James Schorn and Steven Cook were dismissed early on but Rivash Gobind and Hashim Amla safely negiotated the remaining period to stumps to see South Africa reach 72/2.

They are going to have to bat with much courage and conviction to get themselves out of a difficult situation on day three but the wicket is playing very well and Rivash Gobind their captain, with Chad Baxter, are two of their team who have just the ability to do that.