South African coach Mickey Arthur described the second day of the first Castle Lager Test against New Zealand at Supersport Park on Sunday as a mixed day, after South Africa had the visitors on the ropes on 89 for six, and then were unable to prevent them taking a first innings lead of 51.
”We probably didn’t do ourselves any favours after lunch,” said Arthur. ”We gave the left-handers [Jacob Oram and Daniel Vettori] too much width, and let them get away from us. It was pretty disappointing and a pretty ordinary day at the end.
”At lunchtime, we spoke about taking opportunities. We didn’t do that against Australia, where we had 50/50 situations, but they took the opportunities better than we did. We wanted to turn that around, and we had them in a precarious position.
”We wanted a pressure-free day tomorrow [Monday] — we wanted to get a nice lead, and then bowl them out. But it didn’t work out that way — we let them get away, but very well played to Jacob and to Daniel.”
Oram and Vettori had a seventh-wicket partnership of 183, which took New Zealand to within four runs of South Africa’s first innings total. New Zealand were finally all out for 327, for a first innings lead of 51 runs.
Arthur said that before the start of the Test on Saturday, the South African team had thought that day two and day three would be the best days to bat on.
”We think tomorrow’s going to be a really good batting day, and the wicket will deteriorate after that. We’ve obviously got to bat well tomorrow, but we think that innings four is where it is really going to be up and down.”
Arthur said the team had planned to strike hard up front and put pressure on the Black Caps. ”We planned for that,” he said.
”We wanted to put the likes of [Stephen] Fleming, [Scott] Styris and [Nathan] Astle under pressure, and we did that nicely — and then Jacob popped up and played fantastically well. And even a guy like [James] Franklin played some fantastic shots. I guess New Zealand are a little like us — they bat all the way down.”
Oram, the hero of the day, said New Zealand had one of the best middle and lower orders in the world. ”We can all bat,” he said, ”but we have to make sure that we don’t play silly shots and give our wickets away.
”At lunch, we talked about building partnerships, and getting as close to their total as possible. It was a wild dream that we could get a 50 run lead, but the more Daniel and I played together, the more comfortable we felt.”
Oram, who made a career-best 133, said it had been an emotional experience reaching his third Test century, after nearly 18 months out of Test cricket because of a string of injuries.
He said he did not think Sunday’s century was the best of his three Test centuries.
”From a purely stroke-making point of view, it was the worst of the three. I never felt comfortable at all, and I didn’t feel as good as I would have liked technically. But for the team, and the situation we were in, it was probably my best.”
Oram said he thought batting conditions would deteriorate as the match went on, and he thought a target of 300 in the fourth innings would be very challenging. – Sapa