Johann Myburgh weighed in with an unbeaten 57 to put Somerset in control on day one of their English County match against Durham on Sunday.Having hit nine fours off 96 balls, he was still holding the innings together at 147-4 in reply to Durham’s 189 at Chester-le-Street.
Keaton Jennings (49) and Michael Richardson (32) top-scored as Durham collapsed around them. Tim Groenewald, hailing from the same alta mater as Kevin Pietersen, took 3-37.
The Pretoria-born Myburgh was a huge loss to South Africa when he went awandering. In 1998, as a 17-year-old schoolboy, Myburgh broke Graeme Pollock’s record to become the youngest double-centurion in South African first-class cricket and went on to become a regular in the South Africa U19 side, alongside the likes of Graeme Smith, Jacques Rudolph, Ahmed Amla, Jonathan Trott and Michael Lumb.
He was making his mark with Titans until he emigrated in 2007, first to New Zealand, then to England.
The AP Coalition, which for so long has provided the backbone of Lancashire’s line-up finally cracked: Alviro Petersen went for 20 and Ashwell Prince for 0 as their team stumbled to 275 against Gloucestershire. That didn’t look too bad when stumps were drawn with Glos on 15-2.
Prince can be forgiven a little lapse: he is, after all, the county championship’s leading run-scorer with 792, with an average of just over 79; which is 159 more than his nearest rival in division two and more than 200 ahead of the top scorer in division one. Petersen is not as prolific, scoring 438 from his 12 innings at 39.91
Gareth Berg, formerly of WP B before moving to England, proved to be the battering ram Hampshire needed: he bowled one third of the overs delivered on day one against Sussex, taking 4-67 off 22 overs to help restrict Sussex to 251 in 66 overs. His medium pacers accounted for three of the top four batsmen. Hampshire, in reply,were 116-4 at the close.
Nick Compton led the way for Middlesex, top-scoring with 70 off 153 balls against Yorkshire. But he had little support and the visitors were dismissed for 212. Yorkshire were 96-4 at the close.
Compiled by Mark Salter
Picture courtesy of Somerset CCC.
