South Africa v New Zealand, 1st Test, Durban, Day 1 - New Zealand are on top

I love Neil Wagner’s bowling. He is not the star of modern day cricket and very much underrated, but I feel, it’s an injustice to his aggression and perseverance. He runs in, delivers the ball and make the ball jump from a height which becomes quite tough to handle – majority of them are directed towards the rib cage area, oh boy, he gives me the feeling of the 80s and 90s. At the fag end of day 1, he produced some bone-chilling short-pitch stuffs and kept on pressurizing the South African batting line-up. Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock and Vernon Philander were the victims of Wagner and Kane Williamson’s jaw-dropping catch of Du Plessis was the moment of the day.

The first hour of the day was all about Trent Boult. His exhibition of “nice shape away from the batsman” was just a wow-stuff. The length hardly erred. It was full most of the times and made the ball move away late. Dean Elgar seemed like a fish out of the water while Stephen Cook was made to sweat. They were handling Boult by getting behind the line, but once Boult forced them to play forward, life was even more difficult.

I would love to watch Boult’s first eight overs of the day yet again.

Hashim Amla looked at home while handling the skillful bowling of New Zealand pace bowlers. There was a late cut through gully by pivoting on the back foot against Doug Bracewell. It was graceful – perfectly timed and well placed through the gap. Then his foot work against them was tidy which aided him to get on top of the bounce. There was a check-drive through mid off – another class shot which hinted, Amla was up to something big.

But Boult is such a brilliant customer. He came in to bowl another spell of full-and-nice-shape-back-in-type of bowling and dismissed Amla. Temba Bavuma showed guts, but he too failed to maintain the tempo like the top order batsmen. Mitchell Santner just sneaks in and bags some important wickets these days.

The New Zealand bowlers bowled brilliantly, but when I think, South Africa have batsmen like Amla, Du Plessis, Quinton de Kock and Temba Bavuma, I feel, such a poor total on day 1 is quite surprising. JP Duminy, in my opinion, had been the villain of the day. That was a poor shot when the partnership between him and Amla was well set.

The South African batsmen have forgotten the importance of strike rotation these days. They look for adventure rather than respecting Test cricket.

Thank You

Faisal Caesar