Jonty Rhodes will return to the Natal team when they host Boland in a
SuperSport Series game at Kingsmead from Thursday to Sunday, while
batsman Ahmed Amla will make his A Section debut.
These are the only changes to the Natal squad announced yesterday
after the draw with North-West at the weekend. Spinners Goolam Bodi
and Kevin Pieterson, 12th man in Potchefstroom, are the two players to
make way.
Rhodes pulled a thigh muscle during the limited-overs internationals
in Kenya recently, but there was no major damage and the Dolphins'
biggest drawcard will be back in action at Kingsmead on Thursday after
missing just one game.
Although always in control, Natal could not secure a win against
newly-promoted North-West on the flattest of pitches in Potchefstroom,
despite scoring 504 for three and 254 for two in their two innings,
both of which were declared closed.
``I think North-West were very happy to finish with a draw,'' was
Natal coach Phil Russell's verdict. ``The groundsman did a great job.
They wanted to get a draw and the pitch was very conducive to that,''
Russell, himself a former groundsman of international repute, said
yesterday.
``We scored at more than four an over throughout, while they were
battling to get to three an over. We took 13 wickets while losing only
five,'' Russell said, adding that he did not view the draw as a
failure in any way as he felt Natal had ``bowled brilliantly'' but
were undone by an unfair pitch.
Bodi was the one disappointment from the weekend, conceding 91 runs in
his 14 overs in the match, but Russell was adamant the left-arm
spinner from Gauteng would remain part of the Natal set-up despite
being dropped for this week's match.
``I see great potential there, but one must remember he's still only
20 and one can't expect him to bowl like Shane Warne or Muttiah
Muralitharan. He's just starting to learn his trade,'' Russell said in
defence of the bowler whose long-hops and full tosses were despatched
all over the park.
Amla, who made a huge impression over in Ireland while on tour there
with the SA Academy team earlier this year, comes into the side after
scoring a top-class half-century for Natal B against Gauteng B at the
weekend.
The Natal second-stringers beat their Gauteng counterparts in their
three-day UCB Bowl fixture but lost their limited-overs contest. Keith
Storey, with a five-wicket haul in the Gauteng second innings, Kyle
Bender (60), Mark Sanders (88) and Gary Gilder, who bowled well but
without much luck, were the other Natal B players to single out from
the weekend in Johannesburg.
Natal squad:
Ahmed Amla, Eldine Baptiste, Dale Benkenstein (capt), Mark Bruyns,
Andrew Hudson, Lance Klusener, Robbie Macqueen, Shaun Pollock, Jonty
Rhodes, Errol Stewart, Ross Veenstra, Doug Watson.