Honours even in Zim A, Durham match
THERE was very little to separate Zimbabwe A and the visiting Durham County side during the opening day of their first threeday match at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
Former Dutch international Colin Ackerman stood defiant with an unbeaten 82 runs off 86 balls as the county side trailed hosts Zimbabwe A by eight runs on 187 runs for six wickets at stumps.
The 32-year-old middle-order batter was one of two half-centurions, the other being opener and skipper Scott Borthwick (53 runs off 69 balls), as Durham stuttered to shoot down Zimbabwe A’s 195 runs all-out earlier in the day.
Spinner Ainsley Ndlovu, however, deserves a huge chunk of the credit as his four wickets for 43 runs kept the hosts in the game.
Zimbabwe A skipper Roy Kaia won the toss and elected to bat, a decision he would go on to regret as the hosts were bowled out for 195 runs.
Middle-order batter Jonathan Campbell top-scored for Zimbabwe A with a brisk 72 runs off 64 balls that featured 13 boundaries.
The Southern Rocks batter stood head and shoulders above the rest of the Zim A team as only four other batters managed to make double digits.
These included top-order batters Matthew Welch (14) and Kaia (19), and bowlers Donald Tiripano (14) and Ndlovu (27).
After 49 overs, 195 runs hardly looked sufficient enough to turn the game into a contest.
Or, so it would seem.
The Zimbabwe A bowlers kept the hosts in the match with regular wickets starting with Victor Nyauchi who claimed his only scalp of the day with the very first ball of Durham’s innings.
Said wicket was of opener Michael Jones (0), who he had caught behind by wicketkeeper/batter Clive Madande.
The wicket set two crucial partnerships for the visitors, the first being a 45-run off 44 balls second-wicket stand between Borthwick and Ben McKinney.
Luckily, Cuthbert Musoko broke that partnership, before the two could do any more damage when he had McKinney caught by Matthew Welch.
This set the second potentially dangerous stand between Borthwick and Ackerman that saw the two chow up 82 runs for the third wicket.
Brought into the attack, at this juncture, Ndlovu claimed his first of four wickets of the day when he bowled out Borthwick for his 53 runs off 69 balls.
After that, the visitors found it troublesome to put together any meaningful partnerships as wickets fell at regular intervals soon after tea.
Again, Ndlovu was Zimbabwe A biggest wicket-taker, claiming the wickets of Jona- than Bushnell (0), Graham Clark (8), and lastly Haydon Mustard (0).
Action resumes today with the duo of Ackerman and Ben Raine unbeaten 81 and 25 runs respectively, and hoping to build some kind of a first-innings lead.