Now for Fortress Newlands
Bowlers doing an amazing job, says Faf as Proteas wrap up quick win
AFTER an entire day of almost thankless reward it took South Africa just 71 minutes to wrap up this first Test and head into the New Year full of smiles and optimism for the season ahead.
Such is the beauty of Test cricket. For so long nothing seems to happen – and for long periods on the fourth day of this series opener nothing did – and then suddenly it can be turned on its head before you can say Mathurage Don Kusal Janith Perera.
“There wasn’t much happening so we had to make sure the Sri Lankans never got ahead of the rate,” said Proteas skipper Faf du Plessis yesterday.
“The only thing I was focusing on was keeping the run-rate under three, and that meant there were times when we needed to be a bit defensive so the Sri Lankan batsmen never got away with the total, and even though they batted really well yesterday (Thursday), they still needed 270 runs or something.
“That was still a lot of runs to get, so for them to still be in the game they needed to go a little bit quicker to make sure the lead comes down a bit.
“That was yesterday’s mission for me. We saw there wasn’t much happening, so we just wanted to dry the game out for runs. If we got a wicket it was a bonus. We knew that if the wicket should come, it will speed up for us, and luckily it did this morning. We knew if we can get past Nos. 6 or 7, it was going to happen quickly,” added the skipper.
Unlike in times gone by at St George’s Park, where former speed king Dale Steyn precipitated such chaos through intoxicating reverse swing, the demolition job yesterday was orchestrated through regular in-swing by Kyle Abbott, athletic fielding from Vernon Philander off his own bowling, Kagiso Rabada’s ability to generate pace and bounce off the most serene surfaces, and Keshav Maharaj’s nagging accuracy.
It had to be done in this manner due to the local curator, Adrian Carter, fulfilling Du Plessis and the Proteas’ Christmas wishes to the tee.
“The groundsman got it spot on,” Du Plessis said.
“We asked him for a wicket that didn’t spin right through the innings – that moved around on the first innings and didn’t spin on day four and five. So it’s a great wicket that he prepared.
“You can either choose a green wicket or one that’s good for batting and then it will spin later, but against a team like this it’s important that you nullify their strengths, which is spin bowling.
“As a batting unit, we are not scared of batting on a green top, so we will choose going on something that looked a bit greener than something that looks a bit more brown.”
Du Plessis’s endeavours are certainly aided by the fact that he has a highly-skilled bowling attack to call on, while leftarm spinner Maharaj also took giant strides during this Test match, especially in the second innings when he claimed 3/86 including the final wicket of the match.
Sri Lanka will certainly need to improve their shot-selection, which their captain Angelo Mathews referred to as “terrible”, if they are to make an impression at Fortress Newlands in a couple of days time.
Du Plessis certainly concurred with his counterpart that the visitors gave away “a few soft wickets” and had their “batters put their hands up, they could have chased this score down”.
The South African skipper admitted though it would have up been a task as large as Table Mountain had they achieved the world record 488-run target, especially against the quality of Messrs Philander, Abbott and Rabada. “Vernon, Kyle and KG are doing an amazing job. For Kyle to step into Dale’s shoes and do as well as Dale has done for this team is amazing. Every time he plays a game he is incredibly consistent.
“Even though KG wasn’t as quick as he would like – you are not going to always be on song – Vernon put his hand up as he always does on a green top.”