SA A team crush England Lions within three days to sweep series
· Citizen
Tiaan van Vuuren starred as the South African A team thrashed the England Lions by eight wickets within three days to emphatically sweep their two-match four-day series 2-0 in Beckenham, England, over the weekend.
Van Vuuren picked up a superb 11 wickets over the two Lions innings, helping the SA A team limit them to just 351 runs in total, which allowed the visitors to ease to another thumping win, after they beat the hosts by eight wickets as well in their first match in Arundel.
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The SA A team now head into the three-match one-day series with plenty of confidence and momentum, and they will be eager to win that series as well.
In the match the Lions batted first, but were all out for 193, despite a solid 95 from No 7 batter Ekansh Singh, as no other batter passed 20.
Van Vuuren led the bowling effort with a top 5/53 in 15 overs, while Codi Yusuf, 3/51, and Dane Paterson, 2/39, accounted for the other wickets.
Hermann century
The SA A response was then powered by Jordan Hermann who struck a lovely century, with him eventually out for 103 off 111 balls (17×4; 1×6), but it was the final wicket partnership of 65 runs between No 11 batter Paterson, 33 off 26 (4×4; 2×6), and No 10 Yusuf, 21no off 30 (5×6), that boosted them to a lead of 85.
The other decent contributions in the team’s total of 278 came from Bjorn Fortuin (32) and Lesego Senokwane (25).
The Lions second innings was even worse than their first, with them all out for 158, with England international Rehan Ahmed (44), and Singh (30), the top scorers.
Van Vuuren was sublime again, this time picking up 6/52 in 14.5 overs, with Paterson, 3/50, and Fortuin, 1/23, backing him up.
That left SA A with an easy chase, and despite Senokwane (8), and Tony de Zorzi falling for a fourth ball duck, Hermann (32no), and Zubayr Hamza (28no), took them comfortably to their 74-run target.
SA A now turn their attention to the one-day series and a number of exciting players will be joining the group and looking to impress.
Gerald Coetzee, Kwena Maphaka, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Connor Esterhuizen and Dian Forrester have all joined the squad from the IPL, and after only Pretorius featured for two games for the Rajasthan Royals, all of them will be keen to put in some strong performances.
SA A v England Lions one-day series
Friday 5 June at Grace Road, Leicester – 11am start
Sunday 6 June at New Road, Worcester – 11am start
Tuesday 9 June at New Road, Worcester – 11am start