Having stubbed their toe severely a second time in successive seasons on the St George's Park pitch is not the sort of scenario Northerns coach Peter Kirsten had in mind when the side began their quest for Pool A log leadership in Port Elizabeth last Thursday.

Defeat by an innings and plenty by Eastern Province and one bonus point has also not helped their cause to move into the Super Eights with enough carry over points to place the Titans in a challenging position to aim for a place in the final in January.

Border have gone to the top of Pool A after beating Gauteng at the Wanderers and their game against Eastern Province in East London starting on Thursday gives them the sort of edge which will improve their log placing. And what makes it more impressive is that they have managed it without their skipper, Pieter Strydom, now in the South Africa A squad for another week at least.

Gauteng have, however, managed a win overs Eastern Province at the Wanderers while Northerns managed to draw the short straw and played EP two summers in succession in windy city. How the UCB managed to perform that little trick has yet to be explained.

No doubt it could be explained away by suggesting that what with the South Africa A match against Sri Lanka A at SuperSport Park and the England XI playing the combined Northerns/Gauteng XI in Centurion this week, there was no place on the A Section schedule to slot Eastern Province into the Centurion venue.

So Northerns played on a low, slow surface at St Georges and were thumped for their agony and the single bowling point is hardly going to help their cause. At this stage they may go into the Super Eights with 16 points which is possibly 15 points short of what Kirsten and the skipper, Mark Davis would have liked.

Gauteng were given the chance to wipe out Eastern Province at the Wanderers and if the draw is fair, Easterns Province will get a chance to enjoy themselves the way Sri Lanka A did when facing the South African A attack this weekend.

The bottom two sides in Pool A , Easterns and Griqualand West have already fallen out and a quick glance at Pool B indicates Natal, Free State and Boland are already through while Western Province need to beat North West if they are to avoid the humiliation of playing for their supper in the lowly Shield Series for the bottom three provinces.

Easterns play Griqualand West in a scrap for the Pool A wooden spoon in Benoni where about the only battle is to decide which side is going to prop up the log.

Then again as styles go we have a couple of left-handers in that game whose batting abilities are as short on plot and entertainment as a Grade 1 guide to stargazing: Philip Hearle, from Easterns and Martyn Gidley, of Griquas, who began his career as a flashy journeyman in Leicestershire and has travelled to Free State before ending up in Kimberley.

SuperSport Series standings (pool A) after this weekend's matches (read under played, won, lost, drawn, batting points, bowling points, points):

                      P W L D Bat Bow Poi

Border                4 2 0 2 14  16  57 
Gauteng               5 3 1 1 19  13  56 
Northerns             5 2 l 2 14  15  49 
Eastern Province      4 2 1 1 13  14  48 
Easterns              4 0 3 1  6   9  15 
Griqualand West       4 0 3 1 10   5  15 

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