Graeme Smith gained an important advantage when he won the toss and decided to bat first on a pitch that turned sharply when spin was introduced as early as the start of the 13th over. But this was negated to a large extent by the loss of three wickets for 70 runs in a severely rain-shortened first day of the Test series against the West Indies at Queen’s Park Oval on Thursday.
Not surprisingly all three wickets fell to the spinning duo of Sulieman Benn and Shane Shillingford with the latter being one of two players to be making his West Indies Test debut. The latter must have been absolutely delighted with his opening salvo of 2/5 in 6 overs. The other debutant for the West Indies was fast bowler Nelon Pascal who found conditions much less to his liking.
Benn claimed the wicket of South Africa’s most in-form batsman, Hashim Amla, and it was that scalp that gave the home side a decisive advantage on day one. Not that the Proteas don’t have good batting still available. Jacques Kallis is still at the crease with night watchman Paul Harris and there is still AB de Villiers, Ashwell Prince and Mark Boucher to come.
What seems obvious is that this will be a low-scoring Test match and that runs are going to be at a premium. Only time will tell how much of the early spin can be put down to the worn surface and how much to the moisture in the pitch following the amount of rain that has fallen in the past week.
Only 34 overs were possible on Thursday which means that play will start half an hour early on Friday.
The Proteas awarded a first Test cap to left-arm swing bowler Lonwabo Tsotsobe who becomes the 74th player to be capped in the five-day game by Cricket South Africa.
Mini Scorecard:
South Africa 1st Innings 70/3 (34.0 ov)
GC Smith 23(82) Shillingford 2-5
AN Petersen 31(93) Benn 1-21
File Photograph Copyright: Oliver Florence
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