It's all a Test doddle

Two-thirds of SA’s chosen team was enough to keep West Indies at bay on the third day of the first Test at Centurion yesterday.

At the start of play, when the visitors began their reply to SA’s first innings of 552/5 declared, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock were absent because of a stomach virus and a turned ankle respectively.

That put Robin Peterson and Temba Bavuma – the 12th and 13th men – on the field and AB de Villiers back behind the stumps.

After tea, with the Windies’ following on, Vernon Philander exited exhausted to replenish his energy. Then Dale Steyn went off with a groin injury after bowling just five balls in the second innings. Steyn returned after 45 minutes, but did not bowl again.

Because of all that, SA’s XI featured a pair of local teenagers, Sean Phillips and Danie Rossouw. In the dugout, bowling coach Allan Donald had his whites on, ready to call back the past.

Somehow, the Windies failed to make those advantages count. Having been dismissed for 201 in their first innings, they will resume their follow-on effort on 76/2 today; still 275 runs away from making SA bat again.

For more than half of the morning session, Kraigg Brathwaite and Devon Smith suspended disbelief and made a fist of things. By lunch, both had been dismissed. By tea, the entire top six had been cleared away. SA needed less than six overs of the third session to snuff out the innings, which ended with nine wickets down because Kemar Roach did not bat due to an ankle injury.

In 60.2 overs, less than half the number SA faced, the Windies were removed 351 runs behind. Never before in Test cricket, a history that stretches back 137 years and 2150 matches, have a team’s top four all reached 30 but not 40.

Philander bowled with the precision of a Swiss watch to exploit the seam and swing on offer. He came within a wicket of claiming five in an innings for the first time since February last year – or 24 bowling innings ago.

Steyn, much as he was for the Cobras in the supposedly less rarefied atmosphere of the franchise T20 final against the Knights at Newlands last Friday, was too good for this lot to get the edge to his swiftly veering violence.

Morne Morkel bothered the batsmen with bounce and accuracy and even though Kyle Abbott was not in the same league as a threat, the Windies had no real answer to his bowling. Even Dean Elgar nabbed a scalp – and had a catch dropped.

The key wickets were taken four overs apart before tea. First Marlon Samuels chopped on to Morkel. Then Shivnarine Chanderpaul edged Philander low to second slip, where Alviro Petersen tumbled and held a fine catch.

As well as SA bowled, the villains of the piece were the West Indians themselves, who succumbed to a sorry string of poorly chosen strokes that they played even more poorly.