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Stiaan van Zyl’s century on debut earns him a dream start to Test cricket

Considering the way he has batted, van Zyl has been exquisite and perfect with his shots.

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Stiaan van Zyl became the first South African batsman to score a hundred on his Test debut © Getty Images
Stiaan van Zyl became the first South African batsman to score a hundred on his Test debut © Getty Images

With a brilliant century in the first Test against the West Indies, South Africa’s Stiaan van Zyl has had a dream start to his Test career. Ayush Gupta analyses van Zyl’s batting performance .

With South Africa having kicked off their three-match Test series against the touring West Indies side who had a troubled last month after pulling out from the tour of India midway, the Proteas batsmen in the opening Test at Centurion have proved once again that they are a gifted batting side in Test cricket and it is extremely tough to take them out, especially when they are playing in their own backyard.

With Hashim Amla hitting an exquisite double century and skipper AB de Villiers scoring a brilliant 152, the debutant, Stiaan van Zyl was inspired following his senior counterparts’ performance, and proved his worth as well with the bat. A century in the debut match off 129 deliveries including 15 boundaries along with a strike-rate of 77.69, van Zyl couldn’t have asked for anything more.

As he still remains unbeaten on 101, he would be looking to extend his score further before the South African skipper decides to declare his side’s innings on the third day as they have already reached a healthy total of 552 with five wickets down. A score of 150 could well be achieved by van Zyl and given the way he is batting so far, he looks quite set to get it.

Considering the way he has batted, van Zyl has been exquisite and perfect with his shots. He has played exceptionally well towards the leg-side, especially in the midwicket region, where he struck the most fours.  The very first boundary he hit was a class to watch as the ball was quite a length outside off but he picked it well enough to play it through the square-leg region.

With the cover drive being his favourite shot, the West Indies bowlers had clearly kept in mind his area of strength and refrained themselves from bowling outside off and giving enough room to free his arms. However, bowling straight and onto the pads turned out to be expensive as well as his shots through the leg-side puzzled the Caribbean bowlers.

Van Zyl has the ability to spend long hours on the wicket and finding the gaps easily. It’s exactly what he did throughout the innings and piling on his strengths along with some extra-ordinary performance brought up his maiden Test century. In the process, he became the fifth South African to do so after Andrew Hudson, Jacques Rudolph, Alviro Petersen and Faf du Plessis.

However, van Zyl’s work doesn’t end here as after the innings is finished, his bowling would come into play. He is said to have the ability to move the ball bothways, and has good variation as well. Van Zyl’s show with the bat certainly assures him a longer run in the national side, and he might get selected for the limited-overs leg of this series as well.

(Ayush Gupta is a reporter at CricketCountry. A passionate supporter of Manchester United, he idolises Roger Federer)

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