Nagpur, Feb. 2: South African pacers ran through the Board President XI’s top order before Abhishek Nayar (100) and Shikhar Dhawan (70) revived the hosts with a 181-run seventh wicket stand on the opening day of the two-day practice match here on Tuesday.
Put in to bat, the home team slumped to 56/4 and then 114/6 but recovered to post 318 with Nayar, Dhawan and Manish Pandey (43) starring with the bat.
South African captain Graeme Smith allowed all his teammates, barring stumper Mark Boucher, to roll their arm over with Morne Morkel (3/24) and Wayne Parnell (3/66) the most impressive bowlers.
In reply, South Africa XI were 44/0 at stumps with Smith (30 off 37 balls) and Ashwell Prince (13) in the middle at the Vidarbha Cricket Association ground.
Earlier, Board XI openers Parthiv Patel and Abhinav Mukund returned to the pavilion after scoring an identical eight runs and then Parnell struck twice when he removed skipper Rohit Sharma (20) and Ajinkya Rahane (12) in successive overs.
The setbacks had no effect on Pandey, who played his natural game before Morkel removed him. Pandey needed just 42 balls for his brisk 43 which included five fours and two sixes.
It was an ideal situation for Cheteshwar Pujara (17) to come up with something special but the Saurashtra run-machine was castled by off-spinner Johan Botha as his side slumped to 114/6.
That brought Nayar and Dhawan to the middle and the duo defied the South African attack for nearly 40 overs, rebuilding the innings with sensible cricket.
Nayar helped himself to the occasional boundaries that were on offer while Dhawan ran hard between the wickets.
Smith gave both his specialist spinners — Botha and Paul Harris — long spells and sent down three overs himself but to no avail. The stand was eventually broken in the 69th over when Dhawan was run out, having contributed a 120-ball 70 with the help of 10 fours.
Nayar kept going till he completed his century and was the last man out after a 140-ball 100, studded with 16 boundaries. — PTI