South African cricket coach Eric Simons admitted on Friday that his charges had let the West Indies off the hook after the first day of the second Test at Kingsmead.
South Africa had reduced the Windies to 17 for four and then 50 for five before Brian Lara and Ridley Jacobs steered the tourists to a fairly respectable 232 for eight when bad light and rain brought play to a premature close.
”We took our foot off the gas a bit,” said Simons. ”Perhaps we bowled too many glory balls this afternoon. Lara and Jacobs batted well, but they didn’t bat brilliantly. We could have bowled better.”
Lara marked his 100th Test by putting on 98 from just 117 balls with his wicketkeeper.
The pair took a particular liking to Jacques Kallis, belting the wayward allrounder for 29 runs in three overs.
Jacobs was eventually dismissed for 58 while Lara, having been dropped on 13, went on to make 72 before he was out, fending off a Makhaya Ntini snorter.
Ntini took four for 56 to take his overall wicket tally for the year to 55 and in the process become the world’s leading wicket taker for 2003.
In the last match of the year, Ntini leads Australia’s Stuart MacGill by two wickets.
Ntini, however, again stressed that the milestone was not particularly important.
”I’ve set my own targets,” he explained. ”What happens in Australia doesn’t really concern me.
”I just want to do the basics well and hopefully the wickets will follow.” — Sapa