Cape Town had begun the second day's play against Kuils River handily enough placed, leading by 56 runs overall with all ten second-innings wickets still in hand. They quickly set about extending that advantage, scoring at four to the over throughout the first hour. By then opening bat Craig Shepherd had been joined by Francois Vermaak, who hit the ground running by scoring 32 off his first 34 balls faced. With Shepherd happy to turn over the strike, the pair posted their fifty partnership in twelve overs, and then their hundred-partnership in less than ten overs more. By then both had gone to their fifties, Vermaak's sixth in seven matches coming from just 59 balls, while Shepherd completed a somewhat more circumspect maiden half-century for the First XI until being castled immediately afterwards by Neil Claasen, the seamer having taken both wickets to fall at that point.

With the foundation of the innings thus securely laid at 146 for two, the rest of the home side's second innings revolved largely around the pursuit of personal milestones prior to the declaration. Dominic Telo ultimately fell just seven runs short of his goal of reaching 1 000 runs in the season, but not before adding a further 64 at almost five to the over with Vermaak. While the declaration was delayed to allow Vermaak the opportunity of reaching his maiden century for the Cape Town First XI, Tom Main used the time well in the interim to weigh in with another aggressive knock of 31 from just 20 balls - in the process reaching his own milestone of becoming only the second First XI player in the past 13 seasons to do the double of scoring 400 runs and taking 40 wickets in a season. Thus, once Vermaak struck the legside boundary that took him to his hundred off 130 deliveries some ten minutes later, Kuils River were finally set the borderline impossible task of scoring 307 to win from a minimum of 69 overs.

Not that they didn't try. With a victory absolutely indispensable for the visitors in order to secure even the slightest chance of avoiding relegation, following a short, sharp shower of rain they set off with a bang almost from the outset - an attacking approach that even the loss of both openers within the space of eight deliveries did nothing to dampen. With much of the Kuils River second innings being played in various degrees of drizzle, the home side quickly switched to their primary spin attack - Main and Matthew Olsen thereafter bowling all of the last 29 overs of the innings in tandem. Wicket-keeper/batsman Richard Langley was unpreturbed by surviving a difficult chance on the boundary before he had scored, merely continuing where he had left off in the first innings to blaze 29 from his first 20 balls faced as he and his captain Craig Ephraim added 60 together in under eleven overs. It set the pattern for the remainder of the innings, which meant that there was a fair degree of bloodletting on both sides as the boundaries flowed and the wickets tumbled. Langley finally edged Main to slip two runs short of his second fifty of the match, having faced just 37 balls in the process, before the left-arm spinner's next two overs produced a second slip catch and then a run out to topple Kuils River to 111 for five at Tea, suggesting that their brave attempt to chase down their monstrous target was effectively over.

Ephraim was having none of it though, and after the interval swept to his second half-century of the game amidst a flurry of boundaries, adding a further 43 in 6½ overs with Claasen. The visitors in all honesty were chasing an all but unobtainable mirage of victory though, as only once in Cape Town's last 135 Two-Day matches has an opposition side managed to reach even 230 in the fourth innings, and that was not at the Boon Wallace Oval. Thus, although there were a few parting blows yet to come, when Olsen broke that stand by holding a simple return catch, Kuils River's challenge effectively ended. Denied any support of note thereafter, Ephraim nevertheless stayed to the end to keep Cape Town on their toes - with nothing to lose he took the fight to the bowlers in a courageous last stand until, after cracking three sixes and six fours in a 90-ball innings of 84, he eventually chipped to short mid wicket to give Olsen his fourth wicket and seal a comfortable 97-run victory for Cape Town.

Asked to bat on the first day under notable cloud cover, Cape Town had negotiated the first half-hour safely enough, but soon thereafter Ephraim struck three times in 15 deliveries with his medium-pacers to quickly topple the home side to 29 for three. Crucially though Telo remained, and once joined by his captain Jonathan Holgate the pair set about repairing the early damage. While Holgate held his end up nicely, Telo was in clinical mood, displaying a rare blend of power combined with deft placement to strike 13 boundaries of his own in the space of 14 overs in dominating a fifty partnership posted in just eleven overs - shortly before reaching his fourth half-century in five Two-Day innings from 56 balls faced. Holgate came into his own in the last half-hour of their stand too, bringing up the hundred partnership in 22 overs shortly before chasing a wide ball that finally gave off-spinner Aldo Jantjies the breakthrough.

Having looked a sure bet for reaching his fourth century of 2009/10, Telo subsequently lost his way after Lunch though - ultimately hitting a tame catch to cover from seamer-turned-left-arm-spinner Sheldon Adams to fall for 88 shortly after the interval. His departure enabled the visitors' spinners to dominate the rest of Cape Town's middle order, who perished attempting to step up the scoring rate in the final few overs prior to the compulsory 60-over declaration. Lloyd Moore stood firm though, receiving support from Olsen via a typically breezy 17-ball knock of 26, before eventually being last man out to give Jantjies his fifth wicket of the innings.

The first two hours of Kuils River's reply was eerily similar to the pattern that the home side's still formidable total had followed. Their openers also negotiated the first half-hour without undue incident, and in fact started rather brightly in scoring 34 from the first seven overs under skies now sunny and clear. As before though, an opening bowler then broke through with three quick wickets - this time the perpetrator being Darren Rolfe who claimed three for five in 13 balls to slump the visitors to 39 for three. As per the script however, the fourth-wicket stand then added 94 at better than a-run-a-minute as Ephraim again starred, now in company with Langley. Langley was the more fluent of the two, striking a six and six fours in reaching an accomplished fifty from 82 balls - only to hole out on the boundary immediately after reaching the milestone as Wayne Hendricks's left-arm spin claimed two wickets in an over to set the visitors back.

Ephraim remained to grind out a fifty of his own in almost 2½ hours though, as he and Heathcliff du Plooy shared the last notable partnership of the innings to take the total to 170 before the wheels fell off. The return to the attack of Geoff Dods for his second spell was the catalyst for Kuils River's implosion, struggling as they were at that stage being still 78 runs behind the home side's total with only ten overs remaining in which to bat. All the visitors' subsequent attempts to hit out or manufacture shots came to naught against the accuracy of Dods's seamers, and he subsequently collected all of the last five wickets in 26 balls at a personal cost of just nine singles, as Kuils River collapsed to 198 all out - conceding a first-innings lead of 46 runs and giving Dods the first five-for of his Cape Town First XI career.

Match photo's