Times Media
TELFORD VICE in Wellington
SOUTH Africa have called up Dane Piedt to bolster their spin bowling depth for the third test of their series in New Zealand, team management confirmed on Tuesday.
Off-spinner Piedt, who played the most recent of his seven tests against New Zealand at Centurion in August, will join the squad at the weekend, visa permitting.
Currently, the only slow bowler in the visitors’ ranks is left-armer Keshav Maharaj, who took 5/94 in New Zealand’s only innings in the drawn first test at University Oval in Dunedin.
The Basin Reserve in Wellington, where the second test starts on Thursday, isn’t expected to offer spinners much assistance.
But Seddon Park in Hamilton, where the potentially deciding match of the rubber will be played, could well be receptive enough to turn to prompt South to pick two practitioners of slow poison.
The South Africans discovered that for themselves during the one-day series, when spinners claimed 10 of the 24 wickets that fell in the two matches played on Hamilton’s sticky, grippy surfaces.
Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner opened the bowling for New Zealand in both games, and in one of them he and off-spinner Jeetan Patel became the first pair of slow bowlers to take the new ball in ODI history.
Even fast bowler Tim Southee saw the light and sent down pacy off-breaks.
The third test starts on March 25.
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