The New Zealand
season is over, just three days before the first-class season in England
begins. The South Africans have gone home having impressed us greatly. That
they took the Test series only one-nil was down to weather interference in the
first and third matches. Given England’s ineptitude when faced with the turning
ball, South Africa are the best team in the world. I was at the Basin for the
third day of the final Test.
Our Lord Lucan of a summer was finally apprehended
today and there were blue skies at the Basin. This was a welcome contrast to
the unremitting grey of the first two days, during which only 79 overs were
bowled. South Africa began on 246 for two, achieved against an insipid New
Zealand attack on a flat pitch.
The two wickets that fell were both down to third
umpire Billy Doctrove’s eccentric interpretations of the DRS evidence. Graeme
Smith had to go despite neither hotspot nor super slow motion supporting the
view that his bat had made contact with the ball on its way through to the
wicketkeeper. Hashim Amla was not reprieved after being caught
from a top-edged hook even though the replay showed that Mark Gillespie’s heel had
cut the return crease, in contravention of the no-ball rule.
Amla will take no further part in the match having
sustained (and my eyes water as I type these words) blunt trauma to his groin
region, which required surgery overnight. Unfortunately, Jacques Kallis is also
missing, with a neck injury, a double blow for those of us who go to Test
matches to see the best players first and our team do well second.
Alviro Petersen reached his hundred in the second
over of the day, and went on to 156, the biggest of his three Test centuries. He
deserves a break having served last year as captain of Glamorgan, a sentence
that I was unaware a South African court could impose. Petersen and JP Duminy (in for Kallis and playing his first Test in a couple of years) attacked from the off, which was pleasing. For a long time after their return to international cricket the South Africans tended to bat with a fifties-style grimness, as if news of the acceleration that one-day cricket had brought to Test cricket had not reached the Cape. Of all the Tests I have attended, the session I would least care to re-live (and I do not exclude those throughout which it rained) is that between lunch and tea of the second day at Eden Park in 1999, during which South Africa – 352 for three at the resumption – prodded 64 from 35 overs for the loss of a single wicket. It was good now to see them going about things with an urgency that suggested that a win was still the primary goal.
New Zealand’s bowling in this first session was
unimpressive, and Ross Taylor appeared flummoxed as to how to deploy the scarce
resources at his disposal. It was surprising that Chris Martin took the new
ball with the wind behind him, rather than Mark Gillespie, who is the fastest
member of this attack, and in prime form. The state of Taylor’s mind was
betrayed by his decision to seek a review of an lbw appeal against Petersen
that was at the conspiracy-theory end of the continuum, being both too high and
hitting the pad outside off. The reappearance of Vettori in the attack after
just 11 overs with the new ball suggested that the strategy of picking an extra
batsman was not a raging success.
JP Duminy cover drove three fours in one Doug Bracewell
over. The Hero of Hobart’s fine first international season is tailing off, but
he has earned a trip to the Caribbean in a couple of months. Duminy slowed down
as he neared three figures, but reached the mark with a push to leg off
Gillespie (who was switched to the northern end just as the breeze died down).
The 200 partnership came up, but Duminy fell shortly thereafter, edging
Gillespie to Taylor at slip. He has given the South African selectors the best
of problems: more in-form batsmen than there are places available.
The first session was South Africa’s: 115 runs for
the loss of Duminy.
As Chris Martin took up the attack after lunch I noted
that this would probably be his last home Test. But I wrote to that effect last
season, and the one before that, only to be proved wrong. Sure enough in the
first over of the spell he dismissed Petersen lbw, playing across a straight
one. It was disappointing that few joined me in standing as Petersen returned
to the rooms, as an attractive 156 surely deserves such a courtesy.
Reinforcing his reputation as cricket’s Ol’ Man
River, Martin followed with the wicket of de Villiers, who played on as he
tried to work the ball to the leg side. On the radio Iain O’Brien (who has
taken John Morrison’s summariser’s seat, so some prayers are answered) made the
point that Martin still gets good batsmen out, which is true, even if they have
scored 150 first.
Kruger van Wyk had the least impressive day of his
short Test career behind the stumps. He conceded four byes when he failed to follow
a turning ball down the leg side from Williamson, then bodged a run out when
Taylor quickly flicked the ball back as Jacques Rudolph was stranded a couple
of metres down the pitch, only for the keeper to dislodge the bails with his
foot as he collected the ball.
Van Wyk made amends by collecting a low catch from
the first ball of Gillespie’s new spell to dismiss Rudolph. Eyebrows were
raised at the selection of Gillespie for the second Test, but a few days before
I had seen him deliver as hostile a spell of fast bowling as I have seen for
some time in domestic cricket, for Wellington against Northern Districts.
John Buchanan, the former Aussie coach who is now our
Director of Cricket, appointed Kim Littlejohn as selection manager. Even by
Buchanan’s unconventional standards, this is not so much left field as from a
paddock in the next county, as Littlejohn’s previous post was as high
performance manager for Australian bowls (the point should be made that coach
John Wright has the final say in selection matters). They have not got
everything right – the mysterious replacement of Boult by Arnel in Hamilton
springs to mind – but they have brought in players at the peak of their form,
the selection of Daniel Flynn here being another example.
Gillespie bowled with intelligence and determination
and worked his way through the middle and lower order to finish with his best
Test figures, six for 113. South Africa did declare, but with only one wicket
remaining, and were not able to kick on in the middle session as they might
have wished.
Daniel Vettori was a strong influence in this
respect. For the first time since he made his debut fifteen years ago, there
has been debate about whether Vettori should retain his place. I have strong reservations
about his ability as an attacking spinner in the second innings, but criticism
of his performance here fails to understand that his role in South Africa’s
first innings was entirely defensive. 
New Zealand faced 25 overs before the close, and it was wonderfully gripping, Test cricket at its best. Guptill and Flynn (in cracking form, but not an opener), saw it out to the end of the day against the best pace attack in the world, putting on the highest opening partnership of the series along the way.
They got the approach dead right by concentrating
and defence, leaving alone what they could, but taking runs when available at
low risk. At one point there were 21 consecutive scoreless deliveries, but they
did not waiver. Vernon Philander’s opening spell was the first such in his short
but devastating Test career in which he has not taken a wicket. There was one,
hard, chance when Flynn inside-edged off Morkel, but the diving Boucher could
not hold on.
I retain the view that Guptill would be better
allowed to develop naturally in the middle order, but New Zealand do not have
the resources to allow this. Again here he showed that he has the determination
and concentration of a good Test batsman. |
| Martin Guptill, hurried up by Morne Morkel |
It should not be thought that the South Africans bowled poorly; on another day they could have taken four or five wickets in this period of play with the same quality of bowling. But not today. The introduction of Duminy’s affable off spin near the end of the day was a moral victory for the home side, though with two days left and the weather forecast good, nobody the draw remained a port far distant.
The Basin was perfect today, pleasantly full, but
not crowded, and the sun shining from first to last. There is no better venue
for Test cricket anywhere. You get an educated crowd here too. According to CricInfo, the Wellington Grammar Police,
in which I serve as a special constable, were present. Apparently, there was a
sign at one end saying “when bowling from this end remain seated”, causing
someone to shout to Gillespie as he ran in that he should be sitting down.
England are here next year, so we have something to
look forward to over the southern winter.
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