Off-break spin bowler Jeetan Patel may make his Test debut for New Zealand in the second Castle Lager Test against South Africa, which starts at Newlands on Thursday.
Black Caps skipper Stephen Fleming hinted on Wednesday that New Zealand were considering playing two spin bowlers in the second Test, because he thought the pitch at Newlands might be spinner-friendly towards the end of the match.
”Two spinners may come into the picture if the pitch continues to bake off,” said Fleming. ”It’s something we’ll debate long and hard tonight. We’ll have another look at the pitch … tomorrow [Thursday] morning, before making up our minds, but we believe we have a good enough seam attack to be able to accommodate two spinners. Daniel [Vettori] will definitely be there and his ability to win games and put the opposition under pressure is unquestioned.”
Fleming said it was disappointing that New Zealand had to do without their pace bowler Shane Bond, who is going home because of a knee injury. ”But I believe we have a group of bowlers who could provide enough challenges to the South African batsmen to enable New Zealand to win a Test.”
However, he said that in order to win, the top order, which has been very brittle in recent Tests, needed to score more runs.
He said that part of the problem was that New Zealand did not have an established opening partnership, and this was compounded by the fact that Hamish Marshall will have to sit out the second Test as he is still recovering from a nasty blow in the ribs from a Makhaya Ntini delivery in the first Test.
South African coach Mickey Arthur said South Africa would definitely play Nicky Boje in the second Test because he believed spin bowling would play an important role later in the match. He said he did not know at this stage whether Andre Nel or Dale Steyn would be opening the bowling with Ntini.
”It’s a nice position to be in, to have a choice like that,” said Arthur.
”Dale Steyn has broadened our pool, and it means that we can rotate our bowlers a bit more and make sure that they don’t suffer from burn-out.”
He said he thought the six-week break Ntini had during the tour of Australia, when he came back to South Africa to recover from an injury, was the reason Ntini was still so fresh and bowling so well at present.
Arthur suggested that the dew factor might influence a decision as to whether to bat or bowl first, if South Africa won the toss on Thursday. ”It looks as if it will be a very good batting wicket,” he said.
”If the pitch at Supersport Park is anything to go by, it will be like plasticine in the morning, and harden up during the day. But we’ve never played a Test at Newlands so late in the year, so we are heading into uncharted territory.”
He expected New Zealand to come hard at South Africa after losing the first Test. ”If we’re not on top of our game, they will expose us,” he said.
”Even without Shane Bond, we know that whatever they put up against us will be good. New Zealand are very street-smart and they are very organised. You can never underestimate them.” — Sapa