Centurion: Neil McKenzie may have lifted the spirits of the crowd yesterday but serious question marks hovered over the Test future of opening batsman Adam Bacher on a gloomy second day Combined XI outing against the England tourists.

What with 90 minutes, or 21 overs lost to rain before lunch and a further hour late in the afternoon, it was a day of fractured fortunes for the Northerns/Gauteng XI as they dismissed the visitors for 303 and replied with 85 for three when bad light forced an early closure.

With Daryll Cullinan also failing to make a major contribution to the Combined XI innings total with his innings of 11 in 41 minutes it was left to McKenzie to take up the challenge.

Yet if anything positive on the local front has emerged from this game it was the batting flair of young McKenzie who only a week ago plundered a stylish century off the Sri Lanka A side, also at the SuperSport Park venue.

Batting at No 3 McKenzie, an attacking 23-year-old right-hander who moved to Northerns before the start of the season plucked some scintillating strokes out of his kitbag as he put together an impressive undefeated 56 at the close. With him was Martin van Jaarsveld on five.

McKenzie turns 24 on Wednesday but the national selectors may be wondering whether or not to take his form as an indication that at three in the order South Africa has an ideal replacement for Jacques Kallis should there be a feeling the all-rounder be shifted down the order.

He joined Bacher at the end of the first over after Sven Koenig was trapped lbw for a duck by Darren Gough. While Bacher was hesitant and at times struggled McKenzie went for his strokes and the one over bowled to him by the England Test candidate, Alex Tudor left little doubt in anyone?s thoughts of McKenzie?s superiority in the short contest. The young Northerns batsman was in control.

Whether he was pulling through mid-wicket or driving into the covers or straight, the classic style of perfection must have made England skipper Nasser Hussain wonder about how to plug the gaps. And 10 fours so far in his innings which has seen him move past the 500 runs mark and boosting his average, were all well controlled strokes.

Although Gough and Andy Caddick tested his defences there was no doubt who was in control. Bacher took 23 balls before a nudged single got him off the mark and he found the swinging ball in the overcast conditions forcing him on to the front foot.

It was this which led to his eventual downfall when Caddick pulled the South African opener forward to get the edge and Alec Stewart to take a straightforward catch.

Further trouble loomed when Cullinan went lbw to Gavin Hamilton in a partnership of 36 and far from the profitable performance he had hoped to show those critics who feel it is time for him to produce an innings of substance.

The pity is no selectors were present at all yesterday and seemed to have made up their minds, yet again about whom they plan to have in their side for the first Test against England next week.

Naturally David Graveney, England?s chairman of selectors, will have been pleased with the way the new ball partnership of Gough and Caddick bowled while Hamilton may have gone some way to earning his first Test cap ahead of Tudor.

The tourists prolonged their innings long enough to muster a steady 303 with the lower-order failing to produce the fireworks needed to build a more sizeable total with David Terbrugge picking up a fourth wicket, that of Hamilton, the unlucky Greg Smith getting his third and Steve Elworthy plucking out Andrew Flintoff?s off stump to give him a second.

Whatever happens today, the innings of McKenzie is something to remember as it was off an international attack and showed again how he has profited since being moved from five to three in the order this season.

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