South Africa: Davis back to lead Northerns

Mark Davis is expected to resume the captaincy of the Northerns Titans again on Friday when they play Boland in a day/night outing at Centurion.

And Boland, in the midst of a season of trial and tribulation and desperate for some success are expected to give Dan van Zyl his first outing at SuperSport Centurion against his erstwhile teammates after serving out his two match suspension for being a naughty boy in last season's Standard Bank Cup final against Gauteng.

Davis, dropped earlier this month from the four-day side, has always been part of Northerns limited-overs planning and his expertise as captain of the lads in blue in the short game is seen as an important step in the province's efforts to win the league trophy.

Apart from Friday's game against Boland, there are also limited-overs outings against North West (at home) on December 16 as well as Border in East London on December 23. In between this limited-overs activity is an A Section game against Western Province in Cape Town mid-December, when South Africa play the second test against the West Indies in Port Elizabeth.

Roy Pienaar is another likely to regain his place along with Rudi Bryson as the side switches to limited-overs mode and Peter Kirsten, the coach, along with Davis and Chris van Noordwyk plan the next steps of the summer's campaign.

The problem is who to leave out of the side which beat Boland by eight wickets in the A Section match at Centurion Park on Monday. Northerns now find themselves in a happier middle log spot as all the aspects of pre-match preparation came together.

Before the game Kirsten emphasised the point of how 300 plus first innings scores were important with Mike Rindel picking up a long awaited century at this level while Rudolf Steyn and Martin na Jaarsveld continued to display consistent form along with Deon Jordaan.

Northerns head the day/night league log with an unbeaten record and the side is unlikely to show too many changes to the squad which has served the aspirations of the province the last three seasons.