Weather frustrates Warriors’ progress
THE elements had the final say on the second day of the Sunfoil Series match between the Warriors and the VKB Knights as play was abandoned for the day without a ball being bowled.
There is no more forlorn sight on the cricket field when play is interrupted by the elements with the pitch and surrounding areas well covered by green tarpaulins.
Overnight rain and continuous rain in the morning yesterday led to the frustrating, hated call of “no play today”, by the umpires shortly after the lunch break.
This leaves the situation of the Warriors, 77 for two wickets, trailing by 111 runs on the first innings with eight wickets in hand after they had dismissed the Knights for 188 in their first innings after some excellent bowling, particularly by spinner Simon Harmer, this season’s top wicket-taker in the Sunfoil Series.
It will be a travesty of justice if the Warriors are unable to go on to win the match because of the current weather conditions.
The one umpire, Brad White, is of course well known to the Buffalo Park faithful, as he played for Border for a number of years prior to his retirement.
His mid-field partner in this match is Shawn Craig, a visiting exchange umpire from Australia.
For some years now Cricket SA have annually arranged for these exchanges, and a South African umpire this summer has winged his way Down Under and will return with much extra experience under his belt.
The first day’s play on Thursday confirmed that Ryan McLaren of the Knights is among the foremost all-rounders in the country, and his responsible innings of 73 did much to resuscitate the innings after six wickets had fallen for 41 well before lunch.
Patrick Kruger, with a steady 44, has improved beyond recognition, pleased no doubt by his recent debut century for the Knights two weeks ago, and he and McLaren certainly saved the visitors some blushes with an extremely valuable 68-run partnership for the seventh-wicket.
Harmer’s 5/36 came as the result of some pin-point accurate bowling, and the off-spinner has developed into the top spinner in the country at present.
However, a Kolpak contract prevents a recall to the Proteas at this stage.
Should weather conditions improve today, some fast scoring will bring the Warriors a handful of much-needed batting bonus points which could, by tomorrow afternoon, propel them to another well-deserved victory at Buffalo Park.