Even depleted SA too good for Windies

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Centurion

TWO-thirds of SA’s chosen team was enough to keep West Indies at bay on the third day of the first test at Centurion on Friday.

At the start of play, when the visitors began their reply to SA’s first innings of 552/5 declared, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock were absent because of a mystery stomach virus and a turned ankle respectively.

That put Robin Peterson and Temba Bavuma - the 12th and 13th men - on the field and AB de Villiers behind the stumps.

After tea, with the Windies’ following on, Dale Steyn went off with a groin injury after bowling just five balls in the second innings. He returned after 45 minutes, but did not bowl again. Then Vernon Philander exited with a hamstring issue.

Because of all that, SA’s XI featured a pair of local teenagers, Sean Phillips and Danie Rossouw. In the dugout, bowling coach Allan Donald had his whites on, ready to call back the past. How come he didn’t get on?

“We knew that we wouldn’t get the ball out of his hand if he was on the field,” SA team manager Mohammad Moosajee quipped.

Somehow, the Windies failed to make their advantages count. Having been dismissed for 201 in their first innings, they will resume their follow-on effort on 76/2 on Saturday; still 275 runs away from making SA bat again.

“Tomorrow (Saturday) is going to be the big day,” Philander said. “We’ll have to be patient because we’re not going to run in and knock them over - although it could happen.”

For more than half of the morning session, Kraigg Brathwaite and Devon Smith suspended disbelief and made a fist of things.

By lunch, both had been dismissed. By tea, the entire top six had been cleared away. SA needed less than six overs of the third session to snuff out the innings, which ended with nine wickets down because Kemar Roach did not bat due to an ankle injury.

In 60.2 overs, less than half the number SA faced, the Windies were removed 351 runs behind. Never before in test cricket, a history that stretches back 137 years and 2150 matches, have a team’s top four all reached 30 but not 40.

“It was very frustrating that the first four got into the 30s but no-one went on,” Leon Johnson said. “If you get in and you get yourself out, it’s probably a mental lapse.”

Philander bowled with the precision of a Swiss watch to exploit the seam and swing on offer. He came within a wicket of claiming five in an innings for the first time since February last year - or 24 bowling innings ago.

Steyn, much as he was for the Cobras in the supposedly less rarefied atmosphere of the franchise T20 final against the Knights at Newlands last Friday, was too good for this lot to get the edge to his swiftly veering violence.

Morne Morkel bothered the batsmen with bounce and accuracy and even though Kyle Abbott was not in the same league as a threat, the Windies had no real answer to his bowling. Even Dean Elgar nabbed a scalp - and had a catch dropped.

The key wickets were taken four overs apart before tea. First Marlon Samuels chopped on to Morkel. Then Shivnarine Chanderpaul edged Philander low to second slip, where Alviro Petersen tumbled and held a fine catch.

As well as SA bowled, the villains of the piece were the West Indians themselves, who succumbed to a sorry string of poorly chosen strokes that they played even more poorly.

Seven overs before stumps, Brathwaite and Smith knew what it felt like to be dismissed twice in one day. However, Stiaan van Zyl, no doubt still starry-eyed after scoring a century on debut on Thursday, began his test bowling career with a wide. But he will be happy with his figures of 10-2-22-0.