South Africa prove too strong for England Learning Disabilities side

The ECB England Learning Disabilities side lined up for the first game of their South Africa tour with high expectations, but ultimately found their hosts too tough an opposition.

Playing at Boland Park Cricket Stadium in Paarl, South Africa won the toss and elected to bat first and with England taking two wickets in the first seven overs it seemed that all their early preparation was paying off.

However, a partnership of 29 from Dorsamy and Amass pulled the score round to 44 before a change of bowling brought two further wickets. South Africa continued to build with the first 50 coming off 9.2 overs.

England, needing to stem the flow of runs, found South Africa in dominant form now after the poor show against the Australians on the previous day. Chetty and Kolisi put on a 50 partnership in 35 mins taking the score to 144 before Kolisi was run out following a direct throw from Brown.

England, desperate to stop the ease at which the opposition were scoring, introduced spin from Hughes and Abbot which immediately paid dividends in pulling back the scoring rate to below 5.5 an over.

The South African batsmen had no answer to the spin attack now in place and which, in hindsight, maybe should have been introduced earlier. However with the base already set South Africa were eventually all out for 233.

England’s bowling analysis:
D.West 8 – 0 – 49 – 2
I.Saeed 6 – 0 – 40 – 2
P.Brown 8 – 2 – 42 – 1
I.Ahmed 5 – 0 – 35 – 2
A.Aziz 1 – 0 – 8 - 0
M.O’Brien 1 – 0 - 9 - 0
A.Hughes 7 – 0 – 34 – 0
R.Abbot 7 – 2 – 12 - 2

In reply, England opened with Hughes and Saeed but an attacking field setting by the South African captain restricted the openers from the start, and they continued to contain the England pair until Hughes was bowled by one coming back in to him with the score on nine.

England continued to find the run chase hard to keep up with and with a steady flow of batsmen from the pavilion they soon found themselves with a mammoth task. The middle order of the batting was eventually blown away by some very effective pace bowling from M.Amoes having figures of 6 – 2 – 7 – 4.

England managed to beat the lowest score so far of the tournament, but still only managed to achieve 49.

England scorecard
A.Hughes Bowled 2
I.Saeed Bowled 7
M.O’Brien Bowled 7
A.Aziz Run Out 1
D.West Caught 1
R.Abbott Bowled 1
D.Randall Bowled 2
L.Jay Caught 0
P.Brown Bowled 8
B.Ali Not Out 1
I.Ahmed Caught 4
Extras 15

In the after-match presentations the England coach B.Denning complemented the South African team on their achievement on the back of the defeat against the Australians and hoped the England team would learn from their first full fixture and achieve the standards they had shown in practice.

Abbott was singled out for his remarkable bowling in containing the South African batsmen.

England now move on to play Australia again at Boland Park on November 12.