Maiden century for Maregwede as Midlands face huge total

Facing a huge Matabeleland total of 598, Midlands responded quite well but not yet well enough, as they finished the day on 243 for four wickets. The highlight was a fighting maiden century by their wicketkeeper Alester Maregwede.

Matabeleland, beginning the day at 497 for six and no doubt with a massive total in mind, were shocked in the first over of the second day's play. Sherezad Shah, after two sessions without an over after unsuccessfully opening the attack 24 hours earlier, discovered the yorker to good effect. First he caused Keith Dabengwa (33) to play the ball on to his stumps, and two balls later trapped new batsman Piet Rinke lbw, all without addition to the overnight score. Immediately, for some reason, the umpires changed the ball!

Suddenly finding he had only two partners left, Gavin Ewing, 154 overnight, decided to attack. He got away with a few risky strokes but then, as Jordane Nicolle looked solid, settled down again. Nicolle actually did more of the scoring, making 31 in an hour before being bowled by a ball from left-arm spinner Dirk Viljoen that spun sharply and clipped his off bail. Matabeleland were 554 for nine.

Last man Norman Mukondiwa hung on gamely as Ewing moved slowly towards his double-century. Finally, a hard pull to square leg, from whose thigh the ball rebounded, brought him to 200. Mukondiwa then felt free to indulge himself a bit, with two lofted boundaries in the rest of the over. Ewing never quite regained his momentum, apart from a six over extra cover, and he finally fell to a catch in the covers for 212. He hit 19 fours and 5 sixes in his innings. The team innings closed on 598 with three wickets each for Shah and Sibanda, but no bowler was ever really threatening.

Midlands, facing an uphill struggle, lost opener Luther Mutyambizi in the second over, driving loosely to be caught overhead at cover. There were a couple of frenzied, overexcited appeals from the rampant Matabele team, but the umpires withstood the pressure and Vusi Sibanda (10) and Terry Duffin (1) held out until lunch.

Midlands picked up the scoring rate after lunch, with an interesting battle between Nicolle, bowling bouncers with two fielders, and then three, on the leg boundary, and Sibanda, who was willing to take him on and did so successfully for a while.

The pair added 51 before Duffin was given out caught down the leg side off Rinke, and immediately afterwards Sibanda hooked once too often and holed out on the leg boundary off Nicolle. Midlands were suddenly 56 for three.

Viljoen and Maregwede slowly but steadily repaired the innings, though, with quiet, sensible batting, waiting for the bad ball to punish, although not always as severely as it might have been. Maregwede reached his fifty just after tea and was then dropped off a firm pull straight to square leg.

They continued in the same mode and Matabeleland, becoming desperate, made a ferocious appeal for a catch at bat-pad off Ewing when Maregwede was on 88, but it was firmly rejected. As in the Matabeleland innings, much of the bowling was being done by spinners, who were getting some turn, but the pitch was too slow to hurry the batsmen. Ewing followed his double-century with a long spell of off-spin bowling, and the batsmen had to play him with care, but he is not a big spinner of the ball and tended to bowl too many full tosses. Patience was the key and the batsmen had it.

Finally, after three hours, a lofted straight drive off Barney Rogers brought Maregwede his maiden first-class century. It came off 158 balls and he was always the more fluent of the two, as Viljoen allowed him his head. Most of his runs came on the leg side. Soon afterwards, though, he moved down to drive Ewing without getting to the pitch of the ball and edged a catch to slip. He departed for 105, including 14 fours and a six, and Don Campbell (4) saw out the day with Viljoen (69).