Black Caps on brink of victory
The Black Caps are in pole position to score a remarkable seriesleveling test cricket victory.
At stumps on the penultimate day of the third test in Hamilton, New Zealand have South Africa 80-5, with the tourists still 95 runs behind New Zealand’s first innings tally with only five wickets remaining.
New Zealand’s major obstacles on the final day today at Seddon Park will be the Proteas’ renown fighting spirit, an extremely capable middle/lower order batting lineup and a weather forecast that has been wildly inaccurate so far this test but shows the possibility of rain during the afternoon session.
Should the Black Caps - without three of their star players for the encounter through injury - seal victory, it would be their first win against the Proteas since March 2004, when they triumphed by nine wickets in Auckland.
Since then, New Zealand has lost 10 times and drawn five matches against South Africa.
A shocking run-out of debutant Theunis de Bruyn following a collision with batting partner Hashim Amla helped the hosts maintain the upper hand in the final session.
With Amla defending off the back foot against a Neil Wagner delivery, he charged off for a single, but all he managed to do was collide with de Bruyn.
It was a shocking piece of running from Amla, who appeared to call the run late, while de Bruyn had originally turned and watched the ball.
While de Bruyn remained standing, because Amla rolled past him on the ground, he was the one left short of his ground.
Fortunately for New Zealand, he was so far out of his ground that Kane Williamson’s poor throw to wicketkeeper BJ Watling didn’t matter, with Watling having to collect the ball at his ankles, and then, not knowing where de Bruyn was stationed, dive from the ground like a floundering fish and into the stumps.
Earlier, a big century from captain Williamson gave New Zealand a lead of 175 at the end of their first innings as they were dismissed for 489.
Williamson began day four on 148 and looked on track for his second test double-century before falling to an excellent catch by Vernon Philander when hooking Morne Morkel.
Williamson’s best test score is an unbeaten 242, made against Sri Lanka at the Basin Reserve in Wellington in January 2015.
Colin de Grandhomme (57) made his maiden test half-century in his sixth test, striking five fours and two sixes from 70 balls before being the last man out.
Morkel (4-100) and Kagiso Rabada (4-122) shone with the ball for the visitors, while Philander’s struggles on tour with the ball continued as he went wicket-less from his 33 overs and has gone 60 overs since the first test in Dunedin without success.
When South Africa began their second dig well in arrears - with Williamson’s knock effectively the difference between the two first innings - survival could have been their chief mode of application, with a draw enough to hand them a 1-0 series win.
But New Zealand - without firstchoice new-ball bowlers Trent Boult and Tim Southee - made early inroads, with the help of South Africa’s bumbling run-out.
De Grandhomme again dis- played his ability to take wickets as a new-ball option by getting opener Dean Elgar to chase one that moved off the seam and produced an edge through to BJ Watling.
Then came the run-out mishap, and Amla may not have fully recovered when he chopped a delivery from off-spinner Jeetan Patel onto the gloves of Watling and on the rebound to de Grandhomme at first slip.
Duminy may have survived the two DRS reviews without too much alarm but had only made 13 when he failed to spot an arm-ball from Patel that bowled him.
When Temba Bavuma edged Matt Henry through to Watling, South Africa were stumbling awfully at 59-5 before skipper Faf du Plessis (15no) and Quinton de Kock (15no) gave them some hope for today.