Correy Collymore claimed a wicket eight balls from the close to marginally ease the West Indies’ woes on Friday after the South African openers rode roughshod over their severely limited attack.
When bad light brought a premature halt to the first day’s play in the fourth Test at Centurion, South Africa had rushed to 302 for one, scored at better than four-and-a-half to the over.
The fit again Collymore, injured since the first Test at the Wanderers, had Graeme Smith caught behind for 139 but by then Smith and Herschelle Gibbs had made cricket history.
By putting on 301 for the first wicket, the pair became the first to star in three triple centuries.
During last winter’s tour of the United Kingdom, Smith and Gibbs blasted 338 for the first wicket at Edgbaston.
A few months earlier at Newlands, the pair put on 368 against Pakistan.
Gibbs will resume on the second day on 139, his third Test century. By Gibbs’s standards, though, it was not a particularly fluent knock. Previously, his coach Eric Simons bemoaned the fact that Gibbs had never made a ”poor” hundred and had therefore never had to work particularly hard.
On Friday Gibbs was forced to battle extremely hard. He struggled to find any fluency and by the time Smith had reached his seventh Test hundred, Gibbs had stuttered to 57 and had faced far more than his share of the bowling.
In between those quiet periods though Gibbs did manage to play with his customary class, striking the most exquisite square drives and cuts.
In stark contrast, Smith was at his belligerent best. He brought up his ton in just 125 balls, striking 17 fours and a six.
Smith, however, was a touch fortunate to have been able to star in that history-making stand.
Having made 23, he pushed the ball to point and was halfway down the pitch when Gibbs sent him back.
The usually reliable Ramnaresh Sarwan, after scooping up the ball and running in from point, missed the stumps from little more than a metre.
More than a hundred runs later, the Windies were finally able to celebrate his demise. — Sapa