SA take wrong approach, but still likely to win

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Harare

RIDGEBACKS are good at rolling over and playing dead, but not this Zimbabwe team. SA have been learning that lesson for two days now in the one-off test in Harare.

At stumps on Sunday, SA were 201/4 in reply to the home side’s first innings of 256. Having gone into the match with predictions of victory inside three days and by a crushing margin ringing in their ears, the visitors face the once impossible possibility of not earning a commanding lead.

Zimbabwe’s willing but wanting batsmen refused to be intimidated by SA’s firepower, and their bowlers have done a fine job of impersonating a test attack. The truth is they are as toothless as a geriatric ridgeback.

How rude. But first, the better news.

Dale Steyn’s 5/46 gave him a five-wicket haul against all opponents, took him to 380 career wickets and put him above Malcolm Marshall on the all-time list. Just 13 bowlers remain ahead of Steyn.

Dean Elgar passed 50 for the fourth time in 19 test innings and seemed on his way to his third century before having a go at wide delivery and falling to a stunning one-handed diving catch by wicketkeeper Richmond Mutumbami for 61 to give debutant Donald Tiripano a maiden test wicket.

“Maybe I went out of my bubble on that one; I had a bit of a brain fart,” Elgar said of his dismissal.

Faf du Plessis, meanwhile, will resume this morning on 69 not out. But that is where the dark cloud starts to blot out the silver lining.

Du Plessis has faced 192 balls, 31 of them in going from 48 to 50 - which he finally reached off 142 deliveries. Those would be admirable numbers if SA were batting to save a match, but they are not easily explained on the second day of a game against a team not in the same class.

At least Elgar and Du Plessis stood tall, unlike AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla who threw their wickets away with loose strokes. Quinton de Kock is lucky to bat on this morning on 27 not out after being dropped off debutant off-spinner John Nyumbu in the over before the close.

The other side of this equation of this game is that SA - the top test team, lest we forget - have declined to play forceful cricket, particularly from the batting crease.

Significant blame must be laid on a pitch that is playing like a strip of worn out sandpaper. But there is no valid excuse for SA’s outrageously talented, skilled and experienced batting line-up failing to take the game to opponents they should dominate in any conditions.

Last month, on a Sinhalese Sports Club pitch that also gave SA nothing, against a Sri Lankan team that bristled with clear and present danger and with the series and the No. 1 ranking on the line, they were right to dig a trench and stay there. This time, the approach, even though it will probably still result in victory, is wrong.

Elgar, though, did not think so: “You can maybe fall into the error of wanting to take the game on, but it’s only day two - a lot can happen in three days.”

Perhaps the plan is to bat for two days and leave the Zimbabweans too much to deal with in their second innings. However, there are better ways to win matches as well as fans and SA would have done well to invest in them.