Kent seamer, Ekansh Singh, hit his career-high first-class score of 95 for England Lions at Beckenham, to rescue them from a dramatic collapse.
Lions falter on day one
Singh came out to bat at No.7 when the Lions had slipped to 36-5 after just 13 overs. Opener Ben McKinney was out edging to gully, before Dan Mousley had his off-stump ripped from the ground by Tiaan van Vuuren for six – the first of Van Vuuren's five-for. Having made it into double figures, second opener Asa Tribe was trapped lbw by Codi Yusuf in the 12th over, before Rehan Ahmed hit a single boundary before he was caught in the slips off Van Vuuren, in the following over to Tribe's dismissal.
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After Ben Mayes was dismissed for a duck to become the second wicket of Van Vuuren's over, and the third to fall in the space of 11 balls, Singh walked out in a dire situation. Alongside Ben Geddes, he started the monumental task of getting the Lions to a respectable first innings score. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals, while Singh hogged the strike to make his way to a half-century. After the sixth wicket fell, he started to counter attack, hitting Bjorn Fortuin for a six over deep midwicket.
As he neared his hundred, wickets continued to fall, with Naavya Sharma in as the No.11. Five runs off what would have been a maiden first-class century, Singh followed a ball wide of the off stump, and was caught at slip by a superb catch from Prenelan Subrayen moving to his left. Singh was out having scored 95 of the Lions' total of 193, with the second highest-scorer in the innings, Geddes, having scored 18. His previous highest first-class score was 71, which he scored against Derbyshire in the final match of Kent's County Championship campaign last year.
Having lost the first match of the series to South Africa after a first-innings collapse, the Lions are in danger of a similar fate at Beckenham. Mousley chose to bat after winning the toss, as he did in the previous match.
After six overs of their reply, South Africa A were 11-0.
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