South Africa staged a miraculous comeback effort on the second day of the first Test against New Zealand and will be looking to go on with it at Dunedin, making the most of their hard work. Join The Roar for live scores of Day 2 from 9am (AEDT).
The Proteas won the toss and elected to bat, but it took approximately 19 overs for them to be up the creek, facing the wrong direction and with a broken paddle to turn it around.
With Stephen Cook, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy back in the pavilion, the Proteas needed to knuckle down and hold things up to get themselves back into the match, let alone ahead and they found a willing participant in Dean Elgar.
He survived the early carnage of Trent Boult and Neil Wagner before hanging around for the entirety of the day on a pitch that was low and slow, making scoring very difficult.
The Kiwis had made their idea of the pitch clear at the toss, naming two spinners and it played that way with Elgar batting the day out for 128 runs from 262 balls. It was an innings of brilliant concentration and determination from Elgar, with Faf Du Plessis and Temba Bavuma providing him with support.
Despite the tourists spinners bowling well throughout the day, Du Plessis ensured the rot of wickets would stop, scoring 52 and being in the middle for 40 overs, before Bavuma got to stumps on 38 not out.
By the end of the day, the Proteas had recovered their position substantially to be 4 for 229. What is yet to be seen is whether the pitch will flatten out, or simply get worse making a fourth innings chase bordering on impossible.
If that’s the case, then South Africa are well ahead of the match, however Elgar and the middle order proved it’s possible, even if very difficult, to score runs and spend plenty of time at the crease.
That’s going to be the order of the match, and with the Kiwis batting order looking vulnerable coming in, the pressure on Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor is well and truly up.
Day 2 Prediction
It’s genuinely tough to say how the day will play out. The Proteas lost a bag of wickets early yesterday but then batted out the day. It’s hard to say if that’s going to happen again, or if Elgar and Bavuma will pick up where they left off.
New Zealand will be keen to get back into the match, and they should have South Africa all out by lunch, but even that may be too many runs for them to build up a first innings lead, unless the pitch flattens out of course.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of Day 2 from 9am (AEDT) and don’t forget to add your own comments in the section below.
New Test, same result, same problems for Australia as they finish their tour of New Zealand with a fifth win from five matches. Christchurch,…
At the beginning of this second Test between New Zealand and Australia, the Australians formed a guard of honour for Marais Erasmus standing in…
With his place as Australian wicketkeeper suddenly in jeopardy after a poor run of scores with the bat, Alex Carey's brilliant unbeaten 98 to…
It was 50 years ago that New Zealand recorded their first Test Cricket win over Australia.
A five-wicket haul from Josh Hazlewood helped Australia run through New Zealand on the first day in Christchurch, but familiar batting woes have prevented…
New Zealand have tapped uncapped quick Ben Sears for the second Test against Australia, ending hopes of a farewell outing for retired Black Caps…
