ALAN DAWSON continued his red-hot form of the national club championships to bowl Western Province to a comfortable victory in the MTN-All Gold Challenge match at Worcester yesterday.
The allrounder, fresh from a season with Nelson in the Lancashire League, took the first three Boland wickets at a cost of just five runs in seven overs.
The home side, after winning the toss in perfect conditions, never recovered from this blow in spite of a fourth-wicket partnership of 91 between Kenny Jackson and Steve Palframan.
Dawson must have felt a bit aggrieved last season when he was only chosen for four of Western Province's SuperSport Series matches last season in spite of averaging 48 with the bat and 25 with the ball to make him the leading allrounder in the competition.
"I am hoping for more opportunities this season," said Dawson who has lived in the shadow of Brian McMillan and Eric Simons since making his Western Province debut.
"I didn't do quite as well at Nelson as I would have liked but I used the opportunity to work on very aspects of my game such as the use of the crease in my bowling.
"I have worked particularly hard at my batting sothat I can develop into a quality allrounder. Dale Benkenstein was playing just down the round from me at Burnley and we worked a lot together on improving our batting."
The Western Province team to play Griquas in the opening Standard Bank League match will be named today but will not differ much from the side that did duty yesterday. Herschelle Gibbs will return, probably at the expense of Hassan Pangarker, while Bradley Player should also be added to the 12.
Dave Rundle's first bowl of the season yesterday was predictably rusty but it was noticeable that his rhythm improved through his full spell of nine overs.
Source: Independent Newspapers
All Material © copyright Independent Newspapers 1997.
Western Province completed their pre-season preparations with a comfortable four-wicket victory against Boland in the MTN/All Gold Challenge match at Worcester yesterday.
The victory was the perfect result before WP begin the season proper on Friday with their first Standard Bank League match against Griqualand West in Kimberley.
Yesterday's win owed much to a splendid new-ball spell from Alan Dawson and Dean Payne, both fresh from helping Constantia claim the national club championship in Pretoria last week.
Dawson put Boland under early pressure by reducing them to five for three before skipper Kenny Jackson and World Cup wicketkeeper Steve Palframan dug them out of trouble with a 91-run fourth-wicket partnership.
But once this pair had thrown their wickets away before the job was completed, the Boland innings folded, the last seven wickets tumbling for just 21 runs. Dawson returned the fine figures of three for five off seven overs and Payne three for 22 off nine.
WP's target of 118 was never going to pose a real challenge and although Lloyd Ferreira, Faiek Davids and Hassan Pangarker departed in quick succession, HD Ackerman and skipper John Commins added 51 to ensure the result.
In the past two weeks in East London and Worcester, WP have played four limited-overs matches, losing just once to Border by six runs.
WP were due to announce their team for Kimberley later today with Herschelle Gibbs and former Free State all-rounder Bradley Player set to return after missing the matches in Worcester because of their involvement in the Hong Kong Sixes tournament at the weekend.
Source: Independent Newspapers
All Material © copyright Independent Newspapers 1997.
Date-stamped : 30 Sep97 - 18:05