SA bowlers go to Plan B

South Africa’s raw bowling attack had a little chat amongst themselves after the first session about not being so tentative and came out all guns blazing after the break on the first day of the fourth Test against England at the Wanderers yesterday, according to Beuran Hendricks, pictured.

With England winning the toss and batting first, despite overcast conditions and rain which had delayed the start of play by two hours and 40 minutes, the Proteas bowlers were decidedly unthreatening in the first session as the tourists went to tea on 100 without loss.

But Hendricks, who is making his Test debut as part of a bowling attack that, excluding Vernon Philander’s 64 Tests, boasts just 11 other caps, set the ball rolling for the Proteas when, targeting Dominic Sibley’s body with extra bounce, he had the batsman superbly caught behind down the leg side by Quinton de Kock in the third over of the second session.

From there, South Africa kept chipping away and had reduced England to 192/4 when bad light stopped play.

“We had a chat and told ourselves that we are better than we bowled in the first session. We all have our different personal plans, but we had to remind ourselves not to play the batsman but stay with our plan. We were a bit more aggressive after the break, we came out blazing after tea.

“I was very nervous at the start, I just wanted to make sure I began well, but once I got past the first two overs I was quite comfortable and just tried to zone in on my area. After tea I just really tried to make it count, there’s enough in the pitch and, from playing here domestically, I know it does quicken up. But we are happy where we are in the match,” Hendricks said after ending his first day of Test cricket with figures of one for 43 in 13.2 overs.

Hendricks said he did not pre-visualise his first Test wicket, preferring to rather keep a clean slate mentally.