South Australian captain Darren Lehmann has used the Pura Cup match against NSW to remind selectors he may be the man to lift the struggling national one day team, after hitting a cavalier 143 at Adelaide Oval today.

Lehmann's dashing innings, which included 22 boundaries and a six from 130 balls, set the scene for a NSW run-chase for outright points on tomorrow's final day.

The Blues were 0-10 at stumps, with openers Brett van Deinsen on nine and Greg Mail on one, needing a further 305 runs to win in a minimum 96 overs tomorrow.

After leading by 27 on the first innings, SA made 287 in its second innings today to lead by 314 overall.

Lehmann's creative knock, which included several boundaries clipped over the slips and wicketkeeper, as well as many more elegant shots to all parts of the field, was easily the highlight of a day in which none of his team-mates could manage more than 28.

"I was really happy to get 100 today, mainly from a team point of view," Lehmann said.

He said he was giving little thought to any openings that might be created in the Australian line-up by the current run of one-day losses.

"Any time's a good time to be making runs, I can't really worry about that, I've just got to worry about playing for South Australia and if it comes up it comes up," he said.

He was dismissed by part-timer van Deinsen attempting to hit the medium pacer over the mid-wicket fence for the second time in an over, instead managing to sky the ball to cover, where Mail took the simple catch.

Mail's catch failed to make up for two costly missed chances earlier, when he dropped Lehmann in the slips off van Deinsen when he was on two, and off Nathan Bracken when on 58.

Van Deinsen also provided the SA skipper with a life when he dropped him off Stuart Clark's bowling when he was on three, with NSW likely to look back on those three errors as if it fails in its run-chase on a wearing pitch tomorrow.

Bracken bowled just eight overs in two spells in SA's second innings, claiming the wickets of Ben Johnson and Ben Higgins, but spent long periods off the field after being diagnosed with chicken pox.

Earlier, former Australian under-19 captain Michael Clarke completed an impressive 132 in NSW's first innings as the Blues lost their last four wickets in under an hour to be all out for 332 this morning.

Young SA paceman Paul Rofe took 4-8 in 3.4 overs with the new ball today, including the wicket of Clarke, to finish with career-best figures of 6-60.

Rofe has now taken 27 Pura Cup wickets so far this season at an average of 21.1.

© 2002 AAP