After a day of fluctuating fortunes, a century for Jacques Kallis and an unbroken fifth wicket stand of 103 between Kallis and JP Duminy gave South Africa the edge on the opening day of the first Castle Lager Test against England at Supersport Park on Wednesday. South Africa ended the day on 262 for four.
South Africa suffered a major blow before the start of play when the world’s number one Test bowler, Dale Steyn, was ruled out of action with a hamstring strain. He was replaced by Highveld Lions fast bowler Friedel De Wet, who made his Test debut at the age of 29. Makhaya Ntini made history by becoming only the fifth South Africa, and the sixth fast bowler in the world, to earn his 100th Test cap.
Andrew Strauss won the toss and sent South Africa in to bat on a hot sunny day, and his decision seemed to have worked when Stuart Broad achieved a crucial early breakthrough in the second over, with Proteas captain Graeme Smith caught by Matthew Prior without scoring, trying to steer the ball to fine leg.
Ashwell Prince and Hashim Amla put on 51 runs for the second wicket before Amla was well caught at second slip by a diving Paul Collingwood off Graham Onions for 19 shortly before lunch. South Africa went to lunch on a rather shaky 70 for two.
Graeme Swann struck about half an hour after the break when Prince was caught by Collingwood for 45, and South Africa’s premier batsman was joined at the crease by hometown hero AB de Villiers. They brought South Africa back into the match as they went on the attack with a partnership of 66, but fortunes swung back England’s way again in the over before tea when Swann had De Villiers caught at short leg by Alistair Cook for 32.
The last session of the day belonged entirely to South Africa as Kallis and JP Duminy began to pile on the runs as the England bowlers toiled in the heat. Onions suffered a calf strain, for which he had to receive treatment, and that put even more pressure on Broad, Jimmy Anderson and Swann. Strauss introduced Paul Collingwood and Jonathan Trott in an attempt to give his bowlers a rest before the second new ball.
Kallis reached his 32nd Test century — and sixth against England when he top-edged a Broad delivery to fine leg, close to a desperately leaping Onions. It was a typically polished Kallis century, which held the South African innings together. He faced 177 balls and hit 13 fours and a six.
It was his second century in consecutive innings, following on the 102 he made against Australia at Newlands in March, in his last first class outing.
Kallis and Duminy’s 100 partnership came off 210 balls, with Kallis contributing 59 runs and Duminy 38. At close of play, Kallis was not out on 112 and Duminy had 38.
”We would probably have batted anyway, if we had won the toss,” said Prince at the end of the day’s play.
”We know the conditions here — we felt comfortable to bat,” he said. ”We will have to negotiate the first hour tomorrow morning — the ball is still quite new, so we’ll have to see what it does, and then hopefully build this partnership. Being just four wickets down may have tilted things our way.” Prince said he thought the pitch might speed up on Thursday.
”It was a bit slow today, but there was some variable bounce. Being day one, it should only get worse.”
Swann said that although England were disappointed not to have got more wickets, he felt that South Africa had not got away from them.
”Ideally, seven or eight wickets would have been the order of the day. But we’ve stuck to our guns throughout the day, and the fact that we’ve not gone for more than three runs an over is a positive.
”It hasn’t turned out as well as we’d hoped, because we’ve only got those four wickets. But had a couple of the balls that kept low early on — especially from Graham Onions — cannoned into the pads or hit the bails, we could have been sitting in a very different situation.” — Sapa