Published: Mar 08, 2017, 11:01 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 08, 2017, 11:13 AM (IST)
Opener Dean Elgar’s 7th Test hundred guided South Africa to a 229 for 4 against New Zealand at stumps on Day One of the first Test at University Oval, Dunedin. South Africa got off to a disastrous start as they lost Stephen Cook (3), Hashim Amla (1) and JP Duminy (1) within first 18 overs with just 22 runs on the board. But a 126-run partnership between Elgar and his captain Faf du Plessis (52) resurrected the fallen Proteas innings by the end of the second session to put them back in contention in this series opener of three-Test series. At stumps, centurion Elgar (128) batting along with Temba Bavuma (38) having constructed an broken 81- run stand for the 5th wicket.LIVE SCORECARD, New Zealand vs South Africa: 1st Test
For the home team, Neil Wagner took 2 wickets of Amla and Duminy, while Trent Boult and Jimmy Neesham got one wicket of each of Cook and du Plessis respectively.
Resuming from the score of 153 from 4 from the second session, Elgar and Bavuma started on a cautious note. They had lost the wicket of their skipper du Plessis a couple of overs before Tea. Hence it was very vital for the visitors to avoid losing any wicket in the last session to put up a reasonable total by the end of the first day’s play.
Acting in accordance with the situation, both Elgar and Bavuma kept on taking singles relieving the pressure. Elgar was already in a superfluous touch since he was batting from the start of the day. More importantly, he had played resilient knock in the first hour of the game when the Kiwi bowlers were all over them and had taken three crucial wickets.
But Elgar didn’t lose his concentration despite losing four different partners and continued batting with the same intent. But amidst all this gritty batting from Elgar, there was a moment of the seventh delivery of the second session when wicketkeeper BJ Watling dropped a regulation catch down the leg side off Boult’s bowling – Elgar was batting on 36 then.
But making the most of this dropped chance he rectified his mistake to punish the Kiwi bowlers with ease and perfection. There were free-flowing drives, calculated late-cuts and apt use of feet against the guile of Jeetan Patel and Mitchell Santner eventually bringing up his 7th Test century leading South Africa’s attack quite single-handedly.
Bavuma, on the other hand, who had been struggling with his form had the perfect opportunity to make this inning count for himself. Bavuma who had managed to score just 21 runs in the previous series against Sri Lanka back home looked jittery initially today. He was peppered with short deliveries by Boult, Wagner and Neesham. Kane Williamson deployed both spinners against Bavuma trying to get him out quickly given his poor run.
But he continued batting unperturbed. He kept on defending the deliveries rather than getting pressurised due to consecutive maiden overs. Once he got in the groove, he too looked fluent. He didn’t opt to go for big shots but instead looked content keeping the scoreboard ticking dealing in easy 1s and 2s.
New Zealand bowlers looked frustrated towards the end of the day due to this 81-run stand. Both batsmen did not give any chance of letting their opponents take up command of the game. Wagner, Neesham and Boult who had been bowling some excellent stringent spells earlier strayed down the line and gave away too many scoring deliveries; this in return lightened the scoring pressure of visitors.
Initially, New Zealand opted to leave spearhead pace bowler Tim Southee out and got in spinner Patel as the wicket looked conducive to spinners. The wicket assisted both Kiwi quicks and the spinners from the start. Besides this, the host’s bowlers also ensured of not giving any chance South Africa batsmen to free their arms bowling stringent spells in tandem.
Utilising the conditions aptly, New Zealand reduced South Africa to 22 for 3 in the first session. But as the session passed by, the wicket became flat and started helping the batsmen offering more time to ease into shots with no swing on offer.
South Africa have reached a decent total on stumps at Day One and still have Quinton de Kock along with Vernon Philander, Keshav Maharaj to come and bat tomorrow if needed. New Zealand, on the other hand, will be a little happy with the fact that they have not conceded many runs despite the game going away from their grip. But despite this respite, they will be disappointed for not capitalising on the chance that came their way – the dropped catch by Watling when Elgar was on 36 and hence the 92 runs will hurt them the most.
Brief score:
South Africa 229 for 4 (Dean Elgar 128*, Faf du Plessis 52; Temba Bavuma 38*; Neil Wagner 2 for 45, Trent Boult 1 for 23, Jimmy Neesham 1 doe 12) vs New Zealand
