Proteas hope for sunshine to get first innings back on track

SA will look for stability in the first hour of Thursday’s play as they seek to wrest the initiative away from Sri Lanka, in conditions they hope will be more conducive to batting than was the case on the first day. 

Only 111 minutes of play was possible on Wednesday’s first day of the Test season, the majority of which occurred under heavy clouds — which further helped Sri Lanka’s bowlers, who, as it was, had enough help from the Kingsmead pitch.

“With six wickets in hand, and [hopefully] sunshine in the morning, obviously the first hour is important, and we want to get through that with as little damage as possible,” said the Proteas batting coach, Ashwell Prince. 

The home team will resume on 80/4, with the captain Temba Bavuma on 28 and Kyle Verreynne alongside him on nine, hoping to give themselves a foothold in an encounter that hitherto has been dominated by the tourists. 

Most of that is due to the toss, which Dhananjaya de Silva won and, with little hesitation, chose to bowl — an obvious decision that brought reward in the first 20 minutes, when both of the Proteas openers were dismissed. “There was a lot in favour of the bowling team,” said Prince.

“They also bowled well. The deliveries that got the wickets were all decent. Having said that, there’s always an element from individuals to assess and analyse how they could have played those deliveries better.”

Tony de Zorzi and David Bedingham will feel they had little chance with the balls that got them out, Tristan Stubbs was distracted by the sight-screen, but Aiden Markram was tempted into flicking at a ball that, in hindsight, he should have left alone.

But such were the conditions and the testing lengths produced by the Sri Lankans, that what to leave and what to play was difficult to judge. In Markram’s case, his innings of nine, was the continuation of a long sequence of low scores that has seen him pass 50 just once in his last 12 international innings across the three formats. 

He feels more frustrated than out of form, said Prince. “When you’ve had a run of low scores, it would have been nice to arrive here [on Wednesday morning] with the sun shining. He’s quite positive and strong mentally. He’d just like to get a score.”

In contrast, Bavuma had some luck — besides being dropped on one, he was also caught behind attempting to hook off what was later adjudged to be a no ball by the television official. “Temba played really well for someone who's been out of the game for a little while,” said Prince. 

The key to his innings was playing the ball late, a skill that’s been a feature of Bavuma’s batting throughout his career. It allowed him, for the most part, to leave those deliveries pitched back of a good length, where Sri Lanka extracted the most movement, while he was able to take advantage when they pitched the ball up to him. “He played really late, played it under his eye, which was encouraging to see. When they pitched it fuller, he played with his hands close to his body,” said Prince.