EAST LON­DON, South Africa—Open­er Zachary Mc­Cask­ie struck a breezy half-cen­tu­ry but West In­dies-A’s suf­fered a first-in­nings bat­ting col­lapse to hand South Africa-A con­trol of the sec­ond four-day “Test” at Buf­fa­lo Park, yes­ter­day.

Re­ply­ing to the hosts’ 298 all out here Wednes­day, West In­dies-A crashed from 104 for two to be dis­missed for 154, de­spite Mc­Cask­ie’s top score of 62.

Off-spin­ner Dane Piedt proved the tor­men­tor, claim­ing five for 28.

Armed with a lead of 144 runs, South Africa-A fin­ished day two on 65 for one – an over­all lead of 209 runs head­ing in­to Thurs­day’s penul­ti­mate day.

Cap­tain Neil Brand fell cheap­ly for four but Tony de Zorzi (34 not out) and Ray­nard van Ton­der (20 not out) have so far put on 42 for the sec­ond wick­et.

West In­dies-A had ear­li­er done well to re­move the last four South African wick­ets for on­ly 32 runs af­ter the hosts re­sumed on 266 for six.

Ru­an de Swardt, un­beat­en on 25, struck 42 be­fore he was ninth out, one two wick­ets in the morn­ing for new-ball seam­er Akeem Jor­dan who fin­ished with three for 43.

Fast bowler Shamar Joseph added an­oth­er to his tal­ly to end with three for 57.

The 27-year-old Mc­Cask­ie then pro­vid­ed West In­dies-A with sta­bil­i­ty, first in a 25-run stand with Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul (3), then in a 27-run, sec­ond-wick­et part­ner­ship with Kirk McKen­zie (7) be­fore adding a fur­ther 52 for the third wick­et with Kavem Hodge (25).

Chan­der­paul per­ished be­fore lunch, caught at the wick­et off fast bowler Dane Pa­ter­son (2-28) while fel­low left-han­der McKen­zie fol­lowed on the re­sump­tion, pac­er Tshe­po More­ki (3-66) gain­ing a mar­gin­al lbw de­ci­sion.

Mc­Cask­ie, who faced 95 balls in 2-¼ hours at the crease and struck a dozen fours, then com­bined in the best stand of the in­nings with Hodge, who count­ed five fours in a pos­i­tive 35-ball knock.

They per­ished in suc­ces­sive overs, how­ev­er, trig­ger­ing a slide which saw West In­dies-A lose their last eight wick­ets for just 50 runs.

Hodge was bowled through the gate dri­ving at Piedt and with no ad­di­tion to the score at 104, Mc­Cask­ie holed out to deep square pulling a short one from Pa­ter­son.

Cap­tain Joshua Da Sil­va (7) was among the clus­ter of wick­ets to fall, the right-han­der’s lean run con­tin­u­ing when he clipped a for­ward de­fen­sive prod at Piedt in­to the lap of short leg. (CMC)