Few highlights for SA cricketers in England

26 April 2017 - 18:18 By Telford Vice
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South Africa's Dean Elgar celebrates 100 runs during day one of the first Test cricket match between New Zealand and South Africa at the University Oval in Dunedin on March 8, 2017.
South Africa's Dean Elgar celebrates 100 runs during day one of the first Test cricket match between New Zealand and South Africa at the University Oval in Dunedin on March 8, 2017.
Image: Marty MELVILLE / AFP

Dean Elgar has scored a century‚ Stephen Cook a half-century‚ and Wayne Parnell has made a 50 and taken seven wickets in two games.

But that’s about the extent of the highlights among South Africans playing county cricket this off-season.

The South Africans who remain eligible for national selection‚ that is.

Not that there’s much to report among the Kolpak kids - save for Hampshire’s Kyle Abbott occupying second place on the wicket-takers list in division one with 20 scalps from three matches.

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Abbott has taken two five-wickets hauls and boast an average of 16.80.

Elgar scored 34 and 27 in his first outing for Somerset‚ against Essex at Taunton‚ and he dismissed former England captain Alastair Cook.

In his next innings Elgar made an undefeated 113 - more than double his team’s next best effort - at Old Trafford‚ where Lancashire’s attack featured England stalwart James Anderson‚ former Zimbabwean international Kyle Jarvis‚ and Elgar’s compatriot‚ Ryan McLaren.

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Elgar’s 182 runs from four innings puts him 19th on the list of run-scorers in his division.

Cook is a way off that pace with 66 runs in his four knocks for Durham in division two.

His 64 against Gloucestershire at Bristol is his only double-figure score.

It won’t help Cook’s cause for keeping his place at the top of South Africa’s Test batting order that Parnell is doing better then him with the bat.

  • CSA charge Tsotsobe with corruptionLonwabo Tsotsobe has become the seventh player to be charged in the match-fixing scandal that tainted the 2015 edition of Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) franchise T20 competition. 

Parnell has made 100 runs for Kent in four trips to the crease‚ in one of which - against Sussex at Hove - he scored 51 not out.

His return of seven wickets at 23.14 means he is 24th among the wicket-takers in the division.

Vernon Philander is on Sussex’s books but he sustained a groin injury in his first match for them‚ against Kent at Hove - the same game in which Parnell scored his half-century - and has been sidelined for up to three weeks.

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Philander went wicketless for 57 in 17 overs‚ and scored 13 and eight.

In Thursday’s round of one-day fixtures Durham are at home to Derbyshire‚ Kent host Hampshire‚ and Somerset entertain Surrey.

 - TMG Digital/TMG Sport

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