Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE, Harare
WITH the ball snared snugly between the splayed fingers of his right hand, Dane Piedt skipped in to bowl his first delivery in test cricket at Harare Sports Club on Saturday.
Some 108 years ago, Bert Vogler shambled in for his maiden delivery in test cricket at the Old Wanderers - and held the return catch offered by England’s Ernie Hayes.
Although many times removed from Vogler, Piedt knew just how he felt. Once unleashed on Saturday, the hissing orb zigged through the air from leg to off like a red rainbow, zagged as acutely as a shark’s tooth off the coir doormat of a pitch, and zapped Mark Vermeulen plumb in front.
Piedt exploded into celebration, and why not. He had become the 19th bowler and the only South African besides Vogler to know the thrill of immediate success in the hardest form of the game.
“I wanted to make a statement with my first ball,” Piedt said. Job done.
For his next trick, conjured after lunch, Piedt, bowling around the wicket from the other end, pitched on off-stump. Hamilton Masakadza leaned forward, every nook and cranny closed. Somehow, Piedt found a chink and the bails popped like champagne corks.
That got Piedt’s personal approval: “Through the gate; the classic off-spinner’s dismissal,”
Piedt took 4/90 and dropped the catch that would have given him five. His finesse contrasted handsomely with the fire that earned Dale Steyn 4/45.
Still, Zimbabwe were 248/9 - only the fourth time in eight tests against SA that they have breached 200 in the first innings - when bad light ended play.
Despite being written off, the bream had survived the No. 1 ranked tigerfish. Brendan Taylor, the boss bream, crammed the good, the bad and the ugly into his gritty 93, which made him the toast of this rough old town last night.
“We can say we batted the whole day, and we can come back in the morning,” Taylor said.
Dropped on 64, Taylor kept Zimbabwe’s courage screwed to its sticking place and featured in half-century stands with Masakadza, who batted for more than two hours for his 45, and Richmond Mutumbami.
Having shattered the mould for SA spinners, Piedt ended Taylor’s almost four-and-a-half hours at the crease in a more familiar way for his ilk: a heave and a catch on the midwicket boundary.
Down in the pub under the famous gables, some of the locals struggled to pronounce Piedt’s surname, which came out something like “Peedit”. By the end of this match, if Piedt keeps ripping deliveries at ridiculous angles from both ends and from both sides of the wicket, they may want to call him “P-Daddy”.
South Africans will want to believe that Piedt’s success on Saturday marks the start of an era in which spin is a significant factor in their team’s attack. They might be onto something: Vogler dismissed Hayes in what would become, after 10 losses and a draw, SA’s first ever test victory.
It zagged from off to leg and NOT leg to off. ;-)
Indubitably, my dear Enver - it zigged from leg to off. As in the drift that an off-spinner gets through the air. The zag came after it bounced.