If the Redbacks were disappointed about their performance yesterday, they'd be advised to try and forget completely about today's events in the Pura Cup match between South Australia and Queensland here at the Adelaide Oval. After a lacklustre first innings batting performance that yielded the modest score of 215 on a true pitch, the bowlers have suffered badly at the hands of centurions Stuart Law (121*) and Clinton Perren (112) to only add to coach Greg Chappell's woes.

It was a day's play - one that has already delivered competition pacesetter Queensland a lead of eighty-four runs with five first innings wickets still in tact - that essentially never went right for the South Australians. By contrast, it went swimmingly well for the Bulls given that it generated two vital points which push them, for the moment at least, that precise margin clear of second-placed Victoria and eight points in front of third-placed New South Wales.

Take nothing away from the Bulls, today's was a batting performance of which coach Bennett King and his team could be very proud.

The batting of Law and Perren - especially during their match-shaping partnership of 185 runs for the third wicket - was of the highest quality. Perren, in particular, took a genuine liking to the South Australian bowling attack. While he never at any stage looked overly aggressive, it was instructive that he had already struck seventeen boundaries by the time that he notched a well-deserved second century in first-class cricket.

South Australian captain Darren Lehmann literally tried almost everything to break the partnership. Late in the day, he even resorted to bowling his own left arm orthodox spin and gave medium pacer Greg Blewett (0/11) a workout too. In the end, it was the eventual reintroduction of the leg spin of Peter McIntyre (1/68) that finally allowed the Redbacks to remove Perren, who was trapped on his crease as he played down the wrong line at a delivery which did not spin all that much.

While the Redbacks would have been relieved at finally ending that stand, however, they needed only to see the incoming batsman, the hard-hitting Andrew Symonds, to realise the job was far from over.

Shortly after Perren's dismissal, Law raised his own three-figure milestone to compound the home team's agony. The fiftieth century of his first-class career, it was a similarly impressive hundred - one full of elegant strokes.

In the field and with the ball, the Redbacks continued to toil manfully. And, late in the day, at least a small form of reward came - the wickets of Symonds (0), to a direct hit from Shane Deitz at mid off, and Brendan Nash (2), to a loose drive at the hard-working Mark Harrity (2/57), both falling against the general run of play.

But it didn't prevent Queensland from assuming a very significant upper hand by the scheduled halfway stage of the match.

The loss of Paul Wilson to injury, the exclusion of swing bowler Brett Swain and, critically, three dropped catches - Jimmy Maher (47) was missed before he had scored; Jerry Cassell (4) was grassed on 2; and Law on 118 - proved very costly in the end for the Redbacks. At no real stage today did they look like breaking through in anything but sporadic bursts. And at no stage today did they ever look like seizing effectively upon anything that did happen to come their way.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd