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Lunch New Zealand 132 for 1 (Raval 54*, Williamson 27*) trail South Africa 314 by 182 runs
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Morne Morkel became the sixth South African to 250 Test wickets © AFP
The good news for New Zealand, apart from the sun coming out to allow some cricket to happen, was that the grass on the pitch had dried out despite spending a significant time under the covers. Batting became slightly easier, as one might hope on day three of a Test match, and Tom Latham capitalised on that to make his 13th Test fifty. The good news for South Africa was their efforts to foster reverse swing were paying off and that made their bowlers quite effective regardless of the surface.
Morne Morkel took the 250th wicket of his career, exhibiting both his natural strengths and the experience he has gained over his 74 matches. He had seen Latham quite content to leave everything outside off. So he went around the wicket to trick the left-hander into playing at something he shouldn’t. A ball that was coming in for three fourths of the way, pitched, straightened and nabbed the edge through to the wicketkeeper. Quinton de Kock dived to his left to pick up an acrobatic one-handed catch to seal a passage of play from the top draw.
Jeet Raval persevered through it all, playing with soft hands and sure feet. He was 25 overnight and accumulated steadily to put up his fifth Test fifty in 12 innings since his debut. New Zealand finished the morning session – which began an hour and a half late due to a wet outfield – on 132 for 1, 182 runs behind South Africa, and their hopes of winning this deciding Test match rested on one of the top-order making a big score to secure the lead. Raval would want to be the man to do that, considering he has been at the crease for nearly 200 minutes. If he does score a hundred, not only would it be his first in Test cricket, it would be the first by a New Zealand opener against South Africa since 1953.
Spin had started to have a say at Seddon Park, with left-armer Keshav Maharaj ripping balls out of the footmarks. Kane Williamson, wary of the threat, was quick to put him off his length, coming down the track several times, hitting a straight six in the process. A batsman looking to dominate also brings opportunities and in the final over before lunch, Williamson went for a cut shot and was beaten by a little turn and bounce. South Africa went for a massive appeal, and were even considering reviewing umpire Bruce Oxenford’s call of not out, but they took longer than the 15 second window available to them to make up their minds. Snicko later revealed there was no edge.
There were 21.2 overs of play possible in the morning session with New Zealand making 65 runs for the loss of one wicket. More showers were predicted to sweep the city in the afternoon but when lunch was taken at 1.30 pm the sun was still out and both teams would hope it stayed that way.
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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