Border attack pair strike with venom

A FEROCIOUS morning bowling performance from Border strike bowlers Phaphama Fojela and Thandolwethu Mnyaka set them on their way to basically an unassailable lead in their Sunfoil 3-day Cup match against Northern Cape at Buffalo Park yesterday.

The two fast bowlers shared all 10 of the Northern Cape wickets in their first innings to skittle them for a paltry 69 all out.

“Northern Cape battled with the fuller length and we gave ourselves a lot of opportunities to take wickets,” said Border coach Frank Plaatjes.

Border then decided against enforcing the follow-on, amassing 227 all out on the back of Jerry Nqolo’s superb 99, but with just one run to get Nqolo was caught trying to clear the ropes after facing four dot balls, to be the last wicket to fall in their innings.

Northern Cape were on 10/0 in their reply, still trailing by 438 runs with a possible 21 overs still left in the day’s play at the time of going to print.

In the morning Northern Cape resumed their first innings 40/2, chasing Border’s first score of 289 all out.

The carnage began as early as the second over of the day when Fojela had Diego Rosier (11) trapped lbw, and Gerhardt Abrahams (0) caught behind by keeper Avumile Mnci to give the hosts the perfect start.

Fojela removed Warren Bell (2) four overs later as Northern Cape slipped to 49/5.

Having reached 63/5 Fojela sparked their final collapse, trapping Zakir Kathrada (1) in front with Mnyaka taking the final four wickets in the innings as the visitors crashed to 69 all out.

Mnyaka’s 5/17 and Fojela’s 5/21 illustrated the superb performance of the two fast bowlers.

Border in turn lost wickets at regular intervals to reach 137/8 just before tea.

However, with Nqolo leading the charge the final two wickets yielded partnerships of 35 and 55 to see Border to a lead of 448 with just over an hour of play left in the day. on innings