The North West Dragons will need to fight it out with the bat on day 3 (Saturday, 16 December) of their CSA 4-Day Series match against Western Province at Newlands.
The Dragons reached 132/4 after 50 overs at stumps on day 2 in their second innings with a slender 23 run lead.
Raynard van Tonder (18 off 44 balls) and Senuran Muthusamy (3 off 31 balls) were still at the crease and will want to extend the lead to give the Dragons a fighting chance.
One of the main reasons that the Dragons are still in the game, is due to the all-round performance of Migael Pretorius. Pretorius scored a vital 83 (79 balls) in the Dragons’ first innings score of 236 all out. He came out to bat with the Dragons in all sorts of trouble on 89/7 in their first innings. Together with Meeka-eel Prince (64 off 141 balls) they managed so take the Dragons to a reasonable score. Mthiwekhaya Nabe was potent with the new ball taking career best figures of 5/46.
Pretorius continued his good work with a brilliant bowling performance taking 6/78 in Western Province’s first innings score of 345 all out. Province played attacking cricket scoring at nearly 5 runs to the over as most of the Dragons bowlers suffered in the heat.
Pretorius though kept grinding and took the first six wickets of the innings with some beautiful in and out swingers. The best delivery of the lot was a peach that took the outside edge of the in form David Bedingham for 51 (72 balls). At one stage, the home side were on 178/6, but a vital 95-run partnership between left-handers, George Linde with 88 (112 balls) and Kyle Simmonds with 52 (52 balls) put Province in control again.
Pace bowler, Gideon Peters, made his debut for the Dragons and took 2/76 in 11.5 overs. He was expensive, but showed good speed, although his control let him down. Ruan de Swardt (1/64) in 14 overs and Wihan Lubbe (1/20) in 7 overs took the other wickets.
In reply, the Dragons made a much better start in the second innings, reaching 89/0. Lesego Senokwane just missed out on a half-century when he nicked behind for 49. Grant Mokoena was also dismissed for 45, which signalled a small collapse as the Dragons lost two quick wickets in the space of 3 overs. Lubbe was also dismissed for a duck.
