WI vs SA: Shamar Joseph changed the fortunes for the Windies attack in the second test. South Africa is playing their second test against the West Indies after the hosts survived the first blow with all credits to Athanaze and the rain gods as it favoured them to end the match in a draw.
In the second game, Test cricket is back in Guyana after years, as the West Indies elected to bowl first on a fast track. The Protea batters came in to open, and without much wait, the West Indies drew the first blood as pacer Jayden Seales sent off Tony de Zorzi back to the pavilion with a stunner of a delivery.
Seales, in his second over of the match, bowled a magical in-swinger that sent Zorzi’s off-stump flying off the ground. The pacer lept in the air, overjoyed by the stunningness of the delivery.
Adding to the concerns of South Africa, Shamar Joseph was brought in as a replacement for Seales. Joseph was in the hunt for his maiden international wicket on home soil, and his first turns out to be the Protea white-ball skipper, Aiden Markram.
Markram was left baffled as Joseph’s sudden swinging ability both into and leaving the batter caused trouble, while he sent off the skipper Bavuma in the same over with another in-swinger that found him plum in front of the stumps.
The South African innings were under scrutiny as Joseph struck for his 5-fer and Seales with a 3-fer broke the back of the Protea batting order until Piedt and Burger put on a 50+ partnership for the 10th wicket, which took South Africa to 160 in the first innings.
Mulder in the South African attack overshadowed the excellence of Shamar Joseph’s perfect homecoming. Mulder’s career-best 4/18 in the West Indies innings has restricted them to 97/7, with Jason Holder being the pick among the batters with 33 runs.
The track of Guyana seemed to be spicy for the pacers of either team, who bowled in 68 overs and shared and picked 15 of the 17 wickets that fell on the first day of the decider test between the two nations. Let’s see what Day 2 will have in store for the Windies batters.