In a match that gained in stature after sickly beginnings, KwaZulu-Natal and Griqualand West finally settled for an honourable draw as the shadows lengthened at Kingsmead yesterday.
It was a match of extremes featuring the full cricketing rainbow: the good, the bad, the elegant and the ugly. In the end, Griquas deserved their small bonus points advantage (5-4) because they played marginally the better cricket on the first two days.
With the first day rained off, both teams played ill-considered, frenetic cricket on Saturday when, remarkably, 20 wickets fell on a blameless pitch that encouraged decent bounce but in which hardly a ball seamed off its chosen course.
But on Sunday and yesterday, normal service was resumed as the bat largely dominated the ball. First, man-of-the-match Mickey Arthur struck a solid 137 for the visitors on Sunday, enabling his side to set the Dolphins a tough victory target of 345 in 107 overs early today. Then Andrew Hudson replied in kind, striking his 18th first-class century as KwaZulu-Natal got to within sniffing distance of the target before the match ended quietly with the Dolphins finally finishing on 317/7.
It was important that the Dolphins got a solid start, but Doug Watson again played an uncharacteristically rash shot to play on to Ottis Gibson while Errol Stewart was held at first slip off the same bowler.
When Mark Bruyns was adjudged caught bat/pad by Martyn Gidley at silly mid-off off Pat Symcox, the Dolphins were wobbling at 46/3 with a long day, and ultimate defeat, beckoning.
Enter Jonty Rhodes, brisk and ebullient as ever, to take immediate charge. While his partner Andrew Hudson had made a careful, slightly hesitant start, Rhodes struck a delightful 46 in an hour with nine breezy boundaries, a good proportion of them off Symcox who took a fair amount of punishment all around the wicket.
Rhodes and Hudson added 58 at almost a run a minute before the former suffered a fatal lapse of concentration just after the lunch break, flapping at Gibson outside the off-stump to offer 'keeper Wendell Bossenger a routine catch.
As a clearly irritated Rhodes left the field, the prophets of doom were becoming increasingly vocal, but skipper Dale Benkenstein, looking determined, quickly settled down. Without taking any undue risks, he and Hudson quietly established themselves, getting their team on track again.
As in the first innings, the disciplined Griquas' bowlers did not make life easy for the Dolphins' batsmen and for long periods it didn't seem as though the Griquas' target would be threatened. The visitors' torch-bearer was their 29-year-old West Indian professional Ottis Gibson who bowled an immaculate line and length, spicing his tight performance with the occasional bumper as well as a well-disguised slower ball. His final figures of 5/80 in 27 overs compared well with his last appearance at Kingsmead for Border four years' ago when he established his best first-class haul of 7/55 on a much more sympathetic ``greentop''.
Not surprisingly it was Gibson who finally dismissed both Benkenstein and Hudson. After the two men had added exactly 100 runs in 135 minutes, the captain was trapped on the back foot to one that skidded through to rattle his stumps via the inside edge. His 46 in two hours included four fours and a sublimely struck on-drive for six off Symcox, but his departure seemed a crucial blow for the visitors as the aggressive but fragile Keith Forde made his way to the wicket.
However it was a determined Forde who immediately pressed the accelerator, giving the home side a fleeting - but very real - chance of what would have been a remarkable victory. In 76 minutes the powerful right-hander smashed six fours and a huge six over extra-cover off Deon Kruis to set his team a feasible target of 67 runs in the last 11 overs.
But Symcox returned to the attack and helped to strangle the Dolphins' unlikely victory charge. Hudson, whose gutsy but slightly less than fluent 108 in 314 minutes included 12 fours, skied one off Gibson to give the West Indian his ``five-for'', then Gary Gilder ran out Forde to set the seal on the draw.
In a match in which their bowlers bowled too short and their batsmen gave their wickets away too easily, the Dolphins can feel well pleased that they improved sufficiently on the final day to not only earn a draw, but give themselves heart for Friday's SuperSport Series match against Gauteng at the Wanderers in Johannesburg.