West Indies v South Africa (1st Test)

JOHANNESBURG (South Africa) - Brian Lara may still be pondering the wisdom of batting first at the Wanderers after his innings came to a sticky end and then watched South Africa pull off one of their better bowling and fielding performances as the long awaited test series began yesterday.

But if a total of 249 for seven constitutes a fair reflection of the pitch conditions on the opening day of first test, the West Indies need to reflect much deeper about their batting depth and skills while Hansie Cronje no doubt feels South Africa's top six can put together a better performance.

Sure there were a couple of sharp chances which could have turned the day's play upside down and the West Indies lucky to scrape together 200. Such, however, is the fortunes of the game which swung as deftly as any pendulum during an absorbing day's play.

Perhaps the first day's symbolism, more than anything, overshadowed the on-field activities, yet the state of the batting (or bowling) surafce could affect the outcome of this match: it is splintered yet contained enough moisture to create some sideways movement to help the seam and swing bowlers; by Saturday lunchtime spin will far more evident that it was yesterday.

And somewhere between Shaun Pollock's flashes of brilliance and ordinary bowling as well as West Indies indecision was the studious and classic style of Shivnarine Chanderpaul; yet another left-hander, but one who is certainly not prepared to surrender his wicket at a cheap price, as his innings of 74 spread through almost two sessions indicates.

First we had Pollock's first eight overs which saw the tourists buckling at 41 for three with Lara, his arrogance tempered by an indifferent stroke which caused his downfall, cleaning up the mess left by Allan Donald's waywardness.

The man dubbed ``white lightning'' seemed to have lost his touch as much as he did at Edgbaston earlier this year.

After all, travelling for 50 in the first eight overs without a wicket to his credit and giving away enough four-balls to embarrass even a novice, was a galling experience for a test veteran such as Donald.

Compare this with debutante David Terbrugge's economy with his first spell of 10 overs costing only 17 runs. While not in the same class as Fanie de Villiers with his dip and swing, Terbrugge put in a more than adequate performance on a day where bowling at the Wanderers was not all that easy. For one thing there was a fair amount of moisture in the pitch and while it could be tricky to bat on day four and five when the ball is likely to turn. So when Pat Symcox is able to get more bounce than the fast bowlers, save Pollock, and the batsmen have rarely dominated, it says much for Pollock, Jacques Kallis and Terbrugge for their ability to plug away and keep South Africa in with a sniff of surpassing the Windies first innings total when they bat later today.

Yet how different it might have been had Carl Hooper not strained a groin muscle and his batting fluency hindered by the unusual incident shortly after he faced up to Kallis. With Lara caught in his own trap of straddling the crease instead of playing his normal attacking game, it needed the patience of Chanderpaul and Hooper in their partnership of 91 to rescue the tourists from their early predicament.

Chanderpaul drove handsomely and cut sweetly and had Hooper not been hampered by the injury his normal fluency would have done much to help the Windies pass the 250 mark.

As it is the tourists drafted Rawl Lewis into their side only two hours after his arrival from Mumbai and the West Indies A team tour of India. They left out Mervyn Dillon, expecting Lewis' leg spin to add extra bite and variation to there bowling attack.

Day 2: Cronje hold South Africa together

JOHANNESBURG - Hansie Cronje stapled South Africa's flimsy middle-order together at the Wanderers yesterday as hopes of building a substantial first innings buckled before the feared West Indies pace onslaught.

As Courtney Walsh wrote his own special chapter in the Caribbean record books by surpassing Malcolm Marshall's test career record of 376 wickets, South Africa also need to reflect on a number of lost batting opportunities on the second day of this first test.

At the close of an absorbing yet far from entertaining day's play South Africa, at 217 for six, were still 44 runs adrift of the Windies first innings total of 261 with Cronje undefeated on 38. So far he has negotiated a tricky period of two and a half hours batting which included a dodgy period when light was bad enough for the umpires suspended play for 30 minutes.

Yet even this can be queried as the Windies laboured over their overrate and slowed the game down at crucial periods of the day's play. The tactic may have cost Jacques Kallis his wicket after he had put together a stylish, yet solid half-century when he gave it away.

While the drive off the back foot only succeeded in Stuart Williams gobbling up a grateful catch at second slip and pushed Walsh past Marshall's test career wicket record, all the hard work done by Gary Kirsten and Kallis to build a solid foundation to launch a counter attack went for nothing.

After all the second wicket pair had batted just over two hours to add 92 to the total with Kirsten cleverly rotating the strike to put South Africa in a position to take on the Windies bowlers. Kallis was quick on the drive and pull, while Kirsten batted sensibly and made the most of what loose bowling there was.

It could have been that his penchant to drive too far away from his body which cost him his wicket. But with 62 next to his name and the score on 154 he edged the ball into his stumps and left Cronje with the task of rebuilding the innings. With Jonty Rhodes adjudged lbw - a marginal decision but less clear cut than Daryll Cullinan's catch to wicketkeeper Ridley Jacobs also a decision by England umpire David Shepherd - the same old problem arose of finding a partner.

Walsh, with four for 48 put in three magnificent spells of bowling, was according to Marshall, now the West Indies coach, ``a very modest sort of player, so he won't claim too much credit for himself''. He fired in the ball hard and fast and extracted the bounce Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock sought but failed to get on Thursday.

Just how important was Walsh's contribution yesterday was the Curtly Ambrose failed to take a wicket.

Then again, South Africa's on-going top-order failure to produce a substantial opening partnership was again exposed when Adam Bacher went after facing only eight balls and 15 minutes which earned him a single. It was a streaky one at that before he became the first of Walsh's three victims.

In his last 11 test innings Bacher has scored 135 runs with an average not becoming an international cap while his last half century for South Africa was 64 against Australia at Adelaide Oval nine months ago.

It means South Africa's inability to build a substantial total has been exposed all too often in pressure conditions the last two seasons and remains a problem facing the selectors.

Pollock and Doanld cleaned-up the Windies tail with the Natal all-rounder Pollock taking two for three in three overs to collect his sixth five wicket haul with five for 54. Which means he is now only four wickets away from becoming only the second South African to achieve the 1000-runs and 100 wickets double.

Day 3: Careless batting by SA lower order

JOHANNESBURG (South Africa) - Already under siege for a batting display which could earn them star treatment from the comic with an insight in run-making skills and who is quite a hit on the player's benefit circuit, South Africa's captain Hansie Cronje may also be feeling the pinch on another front.

Naturally it is political in connotation which no doubt makes Cronje and Bob Woolmer, the coach, quietly thankful the side are facing the West Indies in a Test series now and not four years earlier. After all, they could be excused for wondering whether or not Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, with a combined age of 71, should not be preparing gracefully for retirement and a comfortable life in some home which caters for geriatric fast bowlers.

Only the siege mentality has become endemic and, who knows, may have been the reason, as added outside pressures are placed on the team, as a reason for their failure to build more solidly on their overnight score of 217 for seven. A first innings lead of seven runs is all they could manage as the lower order crumbled before the rain cascaded from leaden skies hovering over the Wanderers on the third day of this first Test.

With their grizzled veteran Pat Symcox squeezing the side to a narrow first innings lead, scoring 268 in reply to the West Indies 261 could have so easily been 20 or 30 more: even 100 was possible had the lower order put their collective minds to it.

So, as South Africa's batting fell apart against a bowling attack in need of a solid dosage of viagra the rumbling of discontent emerging from the National Sports Council over selection policy of the side, West Indian scribes and radio commentators were puzzled by the mixed signals.

Why all the fuss because a couple of players of ``colour'' are missing? If the reserves are not good enough select those who are. Imagine then the query and raised eyebrows over rumours that at least six players of colour are to be included in the South African A side to play the West Indies in Pietermaritzburg shortly before the third Test in Durban over Christmas. Does it mean that the United Cricket Board are buckling to National Sports Council policy?

Dr Ali Bacher, managing director of the UCB, has expressed his own disappointment. Now it seems the selectors are to be told who and who not to select for future sides as part of the policy of the NC. Or is that too far fetched.

An inside informant says six players of colour and six whites are to be included in the A Team. With Dale Benkenstein out injured until the New Year, Nicky Boje is expected to lead the side. Names such as Ashwell Prince, Herschelle Gibbs, Finley Brooker, Paul Adams, Henry Willams and Makhaya Ntini have been put forward as those likely to be included. Prince, Gibbs and Williams were on tour of Sri Lanka in July and August while Adams and Ntini's form does not warrant selection. These are old arguments, however, yet they are seen as the thrust coming from Mvuso Mbebe, the NSC's hit man, who is meeting with Dr Bacher when this Test is out of the way. And the UCB are meeting for their monthly meeting on December 5, and is not a special meeting to handle the ``players of colour issue'' which has surfaced again.

The view, whether right or wrong, is that the NSC are about to stick their fingers in an area where they should have no say at all. That Mbebe should zip his trap and wait for the normal course of events to take place. Forcing a selection panel, led by Peter Pollock, a man whose integrity should never be questioned, to opt for second rate solves nothing yet creates embarrassment when it fails; as it would do until the quality is there.

The problem is, there are those who attack the system one day yet take part in the transformation process without batting an eyelid. Watching young, unskilled batsmen scared out of their wits at the though of facing Ambrose and Walsh as well as Nixon McLean on a bouncy surface where the ball is coming through at good pace.

No one can say for sure, but Mark Boucher did not stay around long enough to test the theory that the West Indies bowling was a simple matter. And with Cronje and Allan Donald departing in rapid succession, building a lead of any nature was going to be hard.

Which suggests that the West Indies are in a better position to win this first Test than South Africa. What then will be the arguments of those pushing for players of colour?

Foe someone who has vigorously supported the development and transformation process I find it hard to accommodate those who have no idea what is involved and yet aim to push a head and damage the structures which will be successful.''

As for the Test, political appointees are going to find it hard to justify interfering in a programme designed to create a demographically correct selection. The under/19 World Cup team was an example of the success of the scheme, a fact the NSC seem to have forgotten.

Day 4: Tough challenge for South Africa

JOHANNESBURG - Forget the mood of deja vu which had descended on this first test at the Wanderers like a wet grey blanket.

As Shaun Pollock pointed out last night this is South Africa 1998, not Barbados 1992, and the 164 runs needed to beat the West Indies today to go 1-0 up in the series, although an equally a tough target, is perhaps more manageable.

``There are 11 highly motivated guys in the dressing room all believing we can win this one,'' the 25-year-old vice-captain said after returning a test career best nine for 103 and producing the pressure bowling tactics which always had the tourists fighting for survival.

After three days and one session of weaving and dodging like two rusty heavyweights, Pollock produced finally the cut and thrust which saw him take out the top and then the tail as the tourists were dismissed for 170. It did much to level the playing fields as Pollock's four for 49 help reduce the Windies to 38 for three by the 18th over of the innings.

Pollock's nine wicket haul overtakes Richard Snell's eight for 158 against the West Indies in that first test between the two sides.

It sounded, as the West Indian camp readily admitted, the death rattle. But whether the skeleton will fall apart is another matter. There is still the question of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh to overcome. It was Ambrose, who in Bridgetown, Barbados, in April six years ago who turned the first encounter upside down in the second innings six for 34.

There is a thought that the Windies pace attack could maintain their tardy bowling rate of less than 15 overs an hour and by the time tea arrives today another Highveld storm may come to their rescue and drown out the last session in grumbling acrimony. Yet it is just the sort of scenario which is possible as the Windies, blown apart attempt to manufacture another great escape.

In 1992 Ambrose was near his prime with his haul ripping the South African innings apart: a scar which is still visible more than six years later. Kepler Wessels prefers not to discuss that episode.

Hansie Cronje's view of today's play is that he may approach the game in a similar manner to that of the limited-overs game. There is no sense in batting slowly. It has a habit of tying a side in knots and as Cronje displayed against Sri Lanka at SuperSport Centurion last season, knocking off the runs as quickly as possible is the best policy.

As it is the Windies owe their total to some hard-work by Clayton Lambert and sixth wicket partnership involving Ridley Jacobs and the injured Carl Hooper who had Philo Wallace acting as his runner throughout a two hour innings of 34. Lambert, brilliantly caught by Mark Boucher for 33 after a 171 minutes vigil off Pat Symcox's bowling, giving the off-spinner the first of his three wickets.

Once the 68 run partnership was dissolved by a Jacques Kallis delivery which earned the all-rounder and lbw decision, the Windies resistance folded like a clumsy deckchair on a storm-tossed line. It set up Pollock's final thrust with two wickets in three balls and South Africa have 90 overs in which to get the runs today.

Day 5: South Africa get their batting script right

JOHANNESBURG - Not even that master dramatist Shakespeare could have written a more compelling script for the final day as South Africa yesterday wiped away the memories of Barbados six years ago with a four wicket victory over the West Indies at the Wanderers.

Yet until lunch when South Africa in pursuit of 164 for victory on the final day had reached 77 for three did Hansie Cronje's side elbow their way to the front in the face of hostile bowling and delaying tactics.

While the result, after the loss 2-1 of the series against England earlier this year, is a turn around, it does show that South Africa, despite government political pressure and threats coming from Steve Tshwete and the national sports commission, has the sort of character to win well before tea on the final afternoon.

Up to lunch, however, as the unfolding drama enthralled a steadily growing crowd with Jacques Kallis on 20 and Cronje an edgy seven, the tourists seemed to be in with a shout. But after the interval South Africa, with the two batsmen in full flow was the result of the match more or less assured in a 66 runs partnership for the fourth wicket.

The margin of victory, although not a major issue, was always going to be a matter of wickets difficult as it might be. But as Cronje later pointed out, his dismissal for 31 did not really bother him: he had been generally, relaxed about the outcome of the game from the start of the day's play. Once the first hour and the new ball had been seen off, South Africa's positive approach would see them though.

It was not going to be easy, however, and as convincing the margin is, it still required hard graft to get the runs with Kallis, always the touch of class in the top six scoring an undefeated 57 and emerging as one of the two batting stars in the side with Daryll Cullinan.

There was an early spanner in the works when first Gary Kirsten and then Adam Bacher departed with the score on 14 and within five balls of each other. But when Cullinan arrived he assaulted the West Indies bowling sensibilities with some attacking strokes which saw 14 for two in the 10th over transmitted to 58 for three with Cullinan smacking four boundaries in his score of 35.

Not quite as comfortable as South Africa would have liked to have been, despite Cronje's ``captain confidence'' remarks and on a pitch he likened to that at Sydney in 1994 where Fanie de Villiers bowled South Africa to success, circumspection and confidence was all important. Yesterday, with the fissures growing wider, the ball on occasion behaved oddly; it trampoline when it clipped the edge of one of the cracks.

This may have led to Kirsten's dismissal, but the sweat and toil and prickly heat built up a mind set in the openers who seemed to struggle with finding the right line. Kirsten looked tidy yet gave the impression he was not in command. Neither did Bacher whose 41 minutes for six runs are likely to be his last at test level until he learns to move his feet and hands.

While the morning's session was hard and gruelling, the steel band hammering out a variety of calypso tunes seemed to synchronise the batsmen tempo.

For the Windies there were a couple of consolation wickets as man of the match Shaun Pollock and Jonty Rhodes came and went for nine apiece.

In the end it was Mark Boucher who knocked off the winning run when he tucked Curtly Ambrose backward of square for a single and celebrated with Kallis as they walked off with Ambrose ahead of them in the queue, as grim and as foreboding as he had been though tout the game, while Courtney Walsh with three wickets for 45 felt some consolation.

In the media centre high above centre stage Kepler Wessels, captain of the side which had collapsed so dramatically in Bridgetown six years ago, silently saluted the victors while the two players remaining from that side, Cronje and Allan Donald waited until after the game to hold their own moment of celebration.