Keshav snares Aussies’ ‘big cheese’ first up

KESHAV MAHARAJ and David Warner were the designated players for media duty on day one of the first Test, and you couldn’t find two more different players or personalities if you tried.

One is a left-arm spinner, the other a hard-hitting opener. Relative newcomer, worldly veteran. Softly spoken, assertive chatterbox. Chalk and cheese.

And yet, their job description is the same. Warner hit hundreds of balls the day before the Test; Maharaj bowled just about as many. They are both fiercely proud Test players, desperate to gain the upper hand in a series that may well be decided by small margins. The manner in which they go about that job is night and day, of course

“I actually like to go under the radar,” Maharaj offered. “I just try to keep it simple. I don’t have many variations, so I just rely on my consistency to try and outsmart the batsmen,” he said of a game-plan that has already brought control to the Proteas – and no shortage of penetration in the coal-face overs.

“I felt like he controlled it well from one end, especially when it was going reverse. I felt he held up one end very well, and they slowed down our scoring with the fast bowlers at the other end.

“Bowling is all about partnerships,” Warner noted of Maharaj’s efforts.

The spinner’s rewards on day one were the best batsman in the world, as well as the left-handed glue in the middle-order, both due to his patience while playing on his home ground for the first time in a Test.

Warner, meanwhile, takes a more confrontational approach to matters in the middle. So his duel with Vernon Philander before lunch made for compelling Testmatch viewing. “I tried to bring the keeper up... it is more about trying to put him off his lengths,” Warner said.

“The ball was reversing, so I tried to take the LBW out of the equation. I was making sure the front pad was outside the leg-stump line. At the end of the day, he is a skilful bowler, and he worked me out,” Warner continued.

“I negated half a dozen balls that he bowled into me, but then he bowled me a good ball and I nicked off,” he lamented.

“That’s the game, that’s the way it is. The sun comes up again tomorrow, and we keep getting on.”