Matthew Boast, great-nephew of Middlesex hero Vintcent van der Bijl, picked up a five-for in the CSA 4-Day Series division one final.
Lining up for the Warriors against the Lions, Boast took five wickets to help his side secure a slender 10-run first-innings lead. He picked up five of the first seven Lions wickets to fall, all of which came on Day 2, setting up the Warriors for a huge lead, but some brilliant rearguard action from Delano Potgieter has kept the Lions in the game.
Batting first, the Warriors started strongly, with a 68-run opening partnership between Jordan Hermann and Modiri Litheko. Hermann added another 111 runs with JP King, and completed his hundred during the stand before getting dismissed for 110 off 133.
King (123) would also go on to complete his hundred and was the last wicket to fall, but he found little help from other batters. The Warriors went from 198-2 to 229-7, and were eventually bowled out for 305, with only one of their batters from No.5 to 11 scoring in double digits.
Boast then provided a whirlwind start with the ball, dismissing Lions captain Dominic Hendricks in the third over. Patrick Kruger then removed Zubayr Hamza before the right-arm pacer returned to pick up two more wickets in his second spell.
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A 50-run partnership between Connor Esterhuizen and Wiaan Mulder brought the Lions back into the final, but Boast made Esterhuizen his fourth dismissal of the innings. He completed his five-wicket haul by removing Bjorn Fortuin to reduce the Lions to 170-7.
But they added another 125 runs for the last three wickets, with Potgieter remaining unbeaten at 88, and were only bowled out for 295 on the third day. Boast finished with figures of 5-58, his fourth five-for in first-class cricket.
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Boast is notably the grand-nephew of Vintcent van der Bijl, a Middlesex great. The towering pacer picked up 767 first-class wickets in a 15-year-long career between 1967 and 1983. His best for Middlesex came in the 1980 season, when he took 85 wickets at 14.72 apiece in a County Championship-winning season.
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