Volunteer opener Quinton de Kock helped himself to his second half-century of the match as SA continued their dominance of the second Test against New Zealand at Centurion yesterday.
South Africa reached stumps on the third day on 105/6‚ a lead of 372.
De Kock‚ who had not opened the batting in any of his 13 previous Test innings‚ offered to do so after Dean Elgar twisted an ankle while stepping over the boundary the day before the match.
Having scored 82 in the first innings‚ De Kock clipped 50 off 43 balls yesterday.
He announced his intentions early by collecting four boundaries – two of them off the outside edge off his bat – from the first four balls he faced.
But De Kock’s hustle and bustle was not matched by his teammates‚ and when he was felled trying to take evasive action from a Doug Bracewell bouncer – and sent a looping catch to gully instead – SA were 82/5.
Not that they were in danger of losing the advantage‚ having dismissed New Zealand for 214, with Dale Steyn and Kagiso Rabada sharing six wickets.
That earned SA‚ who declared their first innings closed on 481/8‚ a lead of 267 – or 16 runs more than the highest successful fourth-innings in a Centurion Test.
Kane Williamson kept New Zealand’s heads above water with a 77, but his only significant support came in stands of 60 with Henry Nicholls and 45 with Neil Wagner.
Nicholls spent 67 balls on his 36 and Wagner clipped his 31 off 30 deliveries.
Wagner‚ who peppered SA’s batsmen with short deliveries on the first two days‚ was welcomed to the crease with a bouncer to the helmet from Rabada.
That was the first element of what became a barrage of threatening deliveries‚ but Wagner gave as good as he got – hitting four fours and smashing Steyn over long-on for six.
Williamson was the last man out when he pulled at a short delivery from Rabada and was caught behind.
When Wagner was on two umpire Paul Reiffel gave him out to an apparent catch at slip off Rabada.
Wagner reviewed the decision and Rabada was found to have overstepped the bowling crease‚ which brought to seven the number of serious umpiring errors seen in the eight sessions of the match so far.
Some of the mistakes were corrected with the help of the decision review system‚ but Gould informed the players before the start of the day’s second over that the system was not working from the Hennops River End.
It was restored to full functionality before lunch. — Tiso Black Star Group Digital