There were excellent performances from Ahmed Amla, Kyle Abbott and Cameron Delport as the Dolphins beat the Cobras by 18 runs in their 50-over warm-up match at Kingsmead yesterday. There Amla struck 112 not out off 110 balls to lead the Dolphins to 292 for seven.
Proteas paceman Dale Steyn, having his first outdoor outing of the pre-season with the Cobras, bowled within himself to complete six tidy overs for 18 runs.
The Cobras were well placed for victory halfway through their innings with JP Duminy leading the way with an elegant 71 off 91 balls. But once he was out the Dolphins’ bowlers managed to strangle the remaining batsmen and the Cobras had to be content with 274/9.
Kyle Abbott, who bowled superbly at the death, was the home team’s best bowler, finishing with 3-36 in his 10 overs, while Cameron Delport en- joyed a good all-round match, striking an aggressive 49 with the bat and finishing with 2/36 in eight overs.
The teams were to play a Twenty20 game today.
The Cobras will be keen to sharpen up their skills in the shortest format of the game, with the Champions League in India looming. The Cobras’ programme begins with a match against the New South Wales Blues in Chennai on September 24. Their other pool games are against the Chennai Super Kings (September 29), the Mumbai Indians (September 30) and a team from the pre-qualifying tournament (October 4). All the games are in Chennai except for the Mumbai clash, set for Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, three uncapped players – batsmen Dean Elgar and Rilee Rossouw and pace bowler Craig Alexander – are among 28 players chosen to attend a Proteas national camp at the Arabella Golf Estate from Monday to Friday next week.
Alexander, from the Lions, is one of the quicker bowlers around, and has earned recognition after handy performances for South Africa A against Bangladesh A earlier this year and in a recent triangular one-day series against a Zimbabwe XI and Australia A in Harare.
This will be new coach Gary Kirsten’s first opportunity to work with the national players after he officially started on August 1. His management team includes bowling coach Allan Donald and assistant coach Russell Domingo.
Test captain Graeme Smith is recuperating from injury but he and all the first-choice national team players are expected to be fit for the first action of the season against Australia in October.
The convener of the national selectors, Andrew Hudson, commented on the make-up of the squad: “The squad consists of all the CSA-contracted players plus another 11 who have either represented the Proteas before or who have done well enough at South Africa A level recently to merit consideration for promotion,” he said.
“I can’t stress enough how important the A side has become,” he added. “This is our second XI and is the only way for players to gain promotion to the Test and ODI squads.”
Training camp squad: Graeme Smith, Craig Alexander, Hashim Amla, Loots Bosman, Johan Botha, Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Dean Elgar, Paul Harris, Colin Ingram, Jacques Kallis, Heino Kuhn, Ryan McLaren, David Miller, Albie Morkel, Morné Morkel, Robbie Peterson, Vernon Philander, Ashwell Prince, Rilee Rossouw, Jacques Rudolph, Dale Steyn, Rusty Theron, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Roelof van der Merwe, Vaughn van Jaarsveld. Not available (county cricket commitments): Alviro Petersen, Wayne Parnell, Imran Tahir.
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