da brwin： Two fine attacking innings, by Trevor Madondo of the President’sXI and Steve Waugh of Australia, were the highlights of thesecond day’s play between the two teams, which finished with thetourists 274 runs ahead with eight second-innings wickets
John Ward10-Oct-1999Bulawayo, close of second day:Two fine attacking innings, by Trevor Madondo of the President’sXI and Steve Waugh of Australia, were the highlights of thesecond day’s play between the two teams, which finished with thetourists 274 runs ahead with eight second-innings wicketsstanding.Trevor Gripper and Mark Vermeulen continued this morning fromtheir overnight score of 25 for one, against the bowling of theimmaculate Glenn McGrath and the somewhat more erratic MatthewNicholson. Vermeulen took his score to 15 before, playingforward to McGrath, bowling accurately but within himself, he gota thin outside edge to present wicket-keeper Ian Healy with aregulation catch. The score was now 36 for two.Trevor Madondo came in with more aggressive intent than hispredecessors, but looked capable and a more mature player thanwhen he made his Test debut eighteen months ago. Gripper lookedas solid as ever, taking most of McGrath before shattering thelatter’s hitherto economical figures by turning him for threethrough midwicket. Nicholson, in need of bowling practice,bowled four wides down the leg side to Gripper; after a bye,Madondo cracked him away handsomely off the back foot backward ofpoint for four.After this Steve Waugh brought on Shane Warne for his first bowlof the tour. He caused the batsmen little trouble and tended tostray down leg side. Madondo was severe on Fleming when he cameon playing two more of his cracking back-foot square drives tothe point boundary in his first over, and then swinging him for aglorious high six over long-on. Gripper, settling in, beganworking the ball around more readily for ones and twos.Madondo continued to score mainly in boundaries, his trademarkbeing that back-foot stroke backward of point. Certaindisciplinary problems last season did him no favours at all, andprobably the authorities will want to be sure he has matured as aperson before promoting him to the Test team again. Soon afterreaching his fifty, with another such boundary, he misjudged aball from Fleming which did not get up as much as he expected andhit him on the helmet; play was stopped for a few minutes whilehe recovered, but he responded by cracking the next ball throughextra cover for four.It was not a perfect innings: he was beaten a few times anddropped on 55 low down at mid-on when he mistimed a pull. He didnot profit from the error, though, skying another pull offMcGrath for the wicket-keeper to take, running towards squareleg. He made 59 off 102 balls, with 12 fours and a six, and thePresident’s XI were 126 for three.Stuart Carlisle, his international place in the balance, came inand immediately looked positive and purposeful. He playedhimself in, and then on-drove McGrath smoothly for four. Thencame the lunch interval, with the score on 140 for three, Gripperstill there with his dogged 32 and Carlisle on 9.Nicholson came on for a wild and woolly over after lunch whichincluded a wide outside off stump and a beamer which also wentthrough to the boundary to be called four wides. His next overgave umpire Chuck Coventry even more exercise, with threeseparate wides and two more deliveries that he was unlucky to getaway with. For the President’s XI it was just as well the extraswere mounting, as neither batsmen seemed able to get the ball offthe square after lunch, and Carlisle failed to add to his 9 inhalf an hour before, swishing in frustration at a ball down theleg side from Fleming and glancing it into the gloves of thekeeper. The score was now 151 for four.The new batsman Greg Lamb fell at the same score, moving acrosshis stumps but able to get a bat on Fleming, who won an lbwdecision. He was noticeably more fired up after dismissingCarlisle. The last five wickets now needed another 35 runs toavoid the follow-on. Gripper, seemingly unperturbed by the lossof one partner after another, was rock-solid at the other end on34. After hitting only one boundary before lunch, he took chargeof Fleming and drove him past mid-off and then mid-on for twofours off successive balls.Wicket-keeper Bruce Moore-Gordon did not last long, caught atthird slip by Ponting off a ball from Fleming that bounced morethan he expected for only a single, reducing the score to 161 forsix. Eddo Brandes poked and prodded unconvincingly for a whilebefore finally deciding to chance his arm against Fleming, anddrove him for four through extra cover. Nicholson returned fromthe other end, and immediately conceded a boundary off Gripper’spads.Gripper finally reached a marathon fifty by turning Mark Waugh’sfirst ball of the tour for a single towards long leg; it took him286 minutes and 197 balls. The follow-on was duly avoided inpartnership with an unusually restrained Brandes, in his role ofcaptain. With 200 passed, Brandes began to open up, lofting MarkWaugh over long-on for six. Australia finally found the only wayto dismiss Gripper – by running him out. He played a ball intothe covers and called for a run, but was sent back too late byBrandes and left stranded three-quarters of the way down thepitch as Fleming returned the ball to Healy. Gripper’spainstaking 59 showed that he has the application, temperamentand technique to play Test cricket, but needs to add to hisrepertoire of strokes. He faced 211 balls in 299 minutes. ThePresident’s XI were now 211 for seven.Brandes soon followed; Warne had an lbw appeal rejected andexchanged some words with umpire Coventry, but next ball Brandeswent on the big hit and skyed a catch off the outside edge toFleming in the covers. He made 30, and the score was 214 foreight. John Rennie stayed a long time without scoring, and wasfinally given out lbw, shuffling half forward, to McGrath, makingthe score 216 for nine.Pommie Mbangwa, to the glee of his home crowd, turned a fasterball from Warne behind square leg for two to get off the mark.He was to remain unbeaten, losing Ray Price, adjudged lbw to ayorker from McGrath for 2 and bringing the innings to a close for219, a deficit of 116. This was McGrath’s fifth wicket of theinnings; he did not attempt full pace but concentrated on lineand length, conceding just 36 runs in 18.3 overs. Tea was takenbetween innings.John Rennie struck quickly when the Australians batted again;after a single by Greg Blewett, he brought back the ball tostrike Michael Slater, first ball, on the pad and win an lbwdecision from umpire Ahmed Esat. Blewett did not add to hisscore, he completely miscued an attempted pull off a short ballfrom Brandes and skyed a catch to Doug Marillier at mid-off. TheAustralians, probably through trying to score too fast too soon,were two wickets down for just one run.This brought the two Waugh brothers together, Steve having gonein at three, probably to get some extra batting practice sinceLanger, after his first-innings century, needed it less. Thepair applied themselves to dig their side out of a position ofsome embarrassment. Brandes bowled steadily but no longer seemsto have the zip, at the age of 36; probably his internationalcareer is over barring a real spate of injuries to others. MarkWaugh gradually began to find his touch and played some elegantdrives through the covers off Brandes; he hit four boundaries offBrandes’ fifth over. From then on the policy was sensibleaggression, and the fifty came up in the 13th over.Mbangwa came on and successfully slowed down the scoring rate forthree overs, at least. When Price came on to bowl, Steve decidedto open up again and hit him for six and a four over midwicketoff successive balls, then another four through the covers, thebowler pitching too short. He on-drove Mbangwa for anotherboundary, then two late cuts to the vacant third-man region offPrice brought up his fifty. The flurry of strokes continued, andsome misfielding helped to boost the score. Steve was now makingall the running, while Mark by comparison crawled through theforties.A golden opportunity went down when Steve, sweeping at Price, wasput down by Brandes diving at square leg. Mark finally reachedhis fifty with a placid single. Steve was then in the seventies;at one stage he had looked set to score a century after tea, buthe seemed to take a breather at this stage. Then, with timerunning out, he seemed to set his sights on the rare feat again.On 91 he cut Rennie for four, then hit him through the covers forthree, helped by a misfield. A single came off Gripper, but Markwas unable to score off the rest of the over. The Australiansovernight then were 158 for two, with Mark Waugh on 58 and Steveon 99, off 102 balls.