Cape Town - Alviro Petersen completed his third century in successive matches in the latest round of SuperSport Series matches that started on Thursday.

Scorecard: Warriors v Lions

Scorecard: Dolphins v Cobras

In the process he became the first player to score more than 700 runs in this season’s competition.

Petersen had scored a century in his previous first-class match when he made his second career Test match century at Newlands against Sri Lanka in the New Year match. He has now scored centuries in three of his last five innings with, ironically, the exceptions being a duck and his unbeaten four to win the Test match.

He was dismissed shortly before the close for a contribution of 165 (267 balls, 20 fours) to the Highveld Lions’s first-day total of 345/4 in 93.4 overs against the Warriors in Port Elizabeth.

It is Petersen’s third SuperSport Series century of the summer, his best being the 186 he made in the opening round against the Dolphins. He started the day by becoming the third player to take his season aggregate past 600 behind his team-mate, Stephen Cook, and one of his current opponents, Jon-Jon Smuts of the Warriors.

As his innings progressed he went past both of them and eventually on beyond the 700 runs mark.

Petersen was well supported by Jonathan Vandiar, who shared a second wicket stand of 110, Neil McKenzie, who helped add 126 for the third wicket and, finally, 87 for the fourth wicket with Temba Bavuma.

The Warriors took the second new ball just before bad light brought the close 10 minutes early with Bavuma joining Vandiar and McKenzie in completing his half-century.

Runs also flowed freely at the Maritzburg Oval where Stiaan van Zyl scored his ninth career century and his first of the season to help the log-topping Cape Cobras to more than four batting points against the Dolphins.

There was solid batting from the top order with Yaseen Vallie sharing stands of 50 for the first wicket with Andrew Puttick and 87 for the second with Van Zyl.

Van Zyl (110 off 206 balls with 15 fours) and Justin Ontong then provided the major partnership of 127 for the third wicket and, although both batsmen were dismissed on the same total, the Cobras still moved comfortably ahead to the close at 311/4 with Justin Kemp and Richard Levi having already added an unbroken 47 for the fifth wicket.