Ken Borland

South Africa’s attack went from being a sleek, powerful sports car to a battered old bakkie in the space of an hour as Travis Head bashed a punishing unbeaten half-century to put Australia on the brink of seizing the lead after the first day of the first Test at the Gabba in Brisbane on Saturday.

Replying to South Africa’s mediocre 152 all out, Australia reached stumps on 145 for five, with Head producing a great knock of 78 not out off just 77 balls.

The Proteas made a great start in the field as Kagiso Rabada delivered a pinpoint short ball to David Warner first up, the left-hander trying to fend the ball away, but Khaya Zondo, leaping up at short-leg, taking a miraculous one-handed catch.

Left-arm quick Marco Jansen then struck with his first ball as he had Marnus Labuschagne (11) caught in the slips, and in the next over, Anrich Nortje removed Usman Khawaja, also for 11, 12^th man Simon Harmer taking a sharp catch in the slips.

Australia were 27 for three and the Proteas pace attack was looking like a mean machine. Steven Smith and Head then dug in initially, but once they had doubled the score, they shifted gears. Smith pulled and drove Nortje for boundaries in the 18th over, and Head collected a couple of fours in the next over, as spinner Keshav Maharaj was introduced to the attack.

The Proteas began losing their lines and lengths and boundary balls were regularly on offer, with Head and Smith seizing their opportunities to score with alacrity. In the six overs from the 18^th to the 23^rd, 58 runs were hammered as the momentum was emphatically shifted.

South Africa did regain their composure at the end of the day though, as Nortje produced a superb delivery to rip through Smith’s gate and bowl him for 36, while Rabada nipped the ball away from nightwatchman Scott Boland (1) to have him caught behind with what became the last ball of the day.

The Proteas batting continues to confound even the most expert panel of batting coaches as they were dismissed in just 48.2 overs before tea, crumbling from 125 for four to 152 all out.

Sent in to bat on a pitch that was just a slightly paler shade of green than the outfield, South Africa’s top-order was blasted out with just 27 runs on the board. Captain Dean Elgar (3) and Rassie van der Dussen (5) were both caught behind, off Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins (12.2-3-35-2) respectively, before Boland (11-2-28-2) took two wickets in his second over, having Sarel Erwee well-caught by Cameron Green in the gully for 10 and then trapping Zondo lbw for a two-ball duck.

But Temba Bavuma and Kyle Verreynne are probably two of the most determined batsmen in the Proteas line-up and they did invaluable repair work with a fifth-wicket stand of 98.

Verreynne counter-attacked and belted eight fours and a six in his 64, while Bavuma was typically defiant in putting up 38 vital runs.

Left-arm paceman Starc (14-1-41-3) made the breakthrough when he swung the ball back into Bavuma from over the wicket, the batsman inside-edging into his stumps.

Jansen (2) then tried to hammer off-spinner Nathan Lyon (8-2-14-3) out of the ground but could only sky a catch, leaving the bowlers exposed and they were quickly removed by the Australians.

Springbok wing Sbu Nkosi is an adult and clearly able to look after himself, but his three-week absence from Loftus Versfeld and an eerie silence from his cellphone has the Bulls and his agents so worried that he has been reported missing to the police.

The 26-year-old has not reported to training since November 14 and has not responded to messages from the Bulls, nor from his family, including his mother, and agents, Roc Nation.

“We are in direct contact with the Bulls and monitoring the situation,” Roc Nation director Isaac Lugudde told The Citizen on Saturday. “We have also been unsuccessful with a lot of attempts to contact him.

“We are all alarmed and worried, and we just hope that wherever he is, he is safe. Those who know of his whereabouts, please contact us or the Bulls.”

Nkosi was out of action after injuring his rib against the Sharks on October 30, which kept him out of the Springboks’ end-of-year tour as well.

“All I can say is that we hope Sbu is at least keeping safe despite his seclusion,” Edgar Rathbone, the Bulls’ CEO, was quoted as telling local media.

“We’ve been attempting tirelessly to make contact with him, but these efforts have been in vain to date. Everybody is really concerned.”

Since signing for the Bulls in the off-season, Nkosi has already been in disciplinary trouble, being sent on a flight home from Ireland in October after he was late for a team meeting having been given permission to visit a friend in Dublin the day before.

Nkosi has also had problems in the Springbok space, not being industrious enough to renew his passport in time for a Test against Wales last year, despite numerous requests to do so.

While those sort of misdemeanours could be written off as the behaviour of an aero-head, there are now genuine concerns for the well-being of Nkosi, who also has a career as a rapper, having released a song in July called Glock in a Safe.

Playing the Blair Atholl Golf and Equestrian Estate course is the road less travelled for most of the South African Open field, but Thriston Lawrence has been there before and he equalled his course record on the massive Gary Player designed layout to top the leaderboard after the first round on Thursday.

The course has only hosted one professional event before – the Blair Atholl Championship in October 2021 – and Lawrence claimed the course record with a remarkable 64 in the final round that catapulted him into sixth place.

On Thursday he repeated that performance with another eight-under-par 64 to end the first day of the SA Open with a one-stroke lead. Lawrence, who won the rookie of the year award for the 2022 DP World Tour, birdied the second hole but then bogeyed the par-three third. From then on it was a cruise for the highly-promising 25-year-old as he gathered eight more birdies, five of them on the back nine.

The sheer length of the Blair Atholl course – at 7461 metres it is the longest in DP World Tour history – may be daunting for many in the field, but Lawrence enjoys the challenge.

“That was good fun,” Lawrence smiled after signing for his 64, “this course is quite familiar to me after I played the Sunshine Tour event here last year and I’m very happy to tie my course record from the final round then.

“I just tried to keep doing what I do, stick to the game-plan and be aggressive off the tee, and I hit good drives, my approach play was really great and I dropped a few putts today.

“It’s really long, but I like hitting full shots into the green, mid-to-long irons are my game. My long game is my strength and this course definitely suits me.

“It’s just good on the eye for me, the course just seems open for me and obviously I brought a bit of confidence today from that last round last year,” Lawrence said.

Englishman Ross Fisher, another of the longer hitters on tour, also went to town on the back nine, collecting five birdies as well, adding to the three birdies and a bogey, also on the third, he had on the front nine, to finish one behind Lawrence on seven-under. Fisher’s last DP World Tour win came at the 2014 Tshwane Open, which was played at Copperleaf, the previous longest-ever course in tour history, so that is a good omen for the 42-year-old.

Jens Fahrbring, the 38-year-old Swede, joined Fisher on seven-under with a superb bogey-free 65 as dusk settled over Lanseria.

Germany’s Matti Schmid held the clubhouse lead for much of the day with three eagles leading him to a six-under 66, where Scott Jamieson joined him late in the day, the Scot also going bogey-free. JJ Senekal also posted 66.

Luke Brown, who won the Blair Atholl Championship last year, parked himself on five-under with a 67 that also did not feature a single dropped shot. Spain’s Santiago Tarrio and Italian Edoardo Molinari also posted 67s, as did Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin, who made a hole-in-one on the 213-metre par-three 11^th in just his second DP World Tour start.

South Africa’s Hennie du Plessis also registered an ace, on the par-three third hole.

Wilco Nienaber, perhaps the longest hitter of them all, also finished on five-under, offsetting a double-bogey five at the 17^th with an eagle on the par-five closing hole.

Coach Jake White was not only delighted by Nizaam Carr’s man-of-the-match return to the Bulls team because of the way it led them to a convincing 43-26 victory in their United Rugby Championship match against Ospreys, but also for the relief it brought after a very difficult time for the Springbok flanker and his wife and family.

Carr left the Bulls last year to rejoin Wasps, but the English club went into administration last month and the 31-year-old former Stormers star suffered the trauma of suddenly being without a job. But then the Bulls allowed him to be one of the dozen Wasps players who have found new clubs when they offered him a contract through to June 2024.

Carr has previously expressed his gratitude to White and Bulls CEO Edgar Rathbone for coming to his rescue, and he rewarded their faith with an outstanding display against Ospreys, linking superbly with the backline on attack.

“I’m very happy for Nizaam after what happened at Wasps. He has told us he is very thankful to be here and said he would repay us on the field, and what better way to do that by being man of the match in his first game back?” White said.

“The way Nizaam was running in the backline with Harold Vorster and Lionel Mapoe, linking on the outside, was great. That’s why I sign these older players, guys who’ve got experience, who have played SuperRugby before.”

Apart from some soft moments in defence that did mar the win and the way the Bulls went off the boil in the second half, after leading 31-14 at the break, White was very pleased with the display. He said some of the second-half struggles were down to him bringing on the bench early, but then he did not want to sell the replacements short in terms of game-time.

“We played really well in the first half and we should’ve scored quickly again in the second half. But instead we allowed them to get more confidence,” White said.

“We were a bit soft on defence, but then attack has been our focus, we love having the ball. But we need the same intensity, energy and excitement in defence. We need to catch them at halfway rather than five metres from our line.

“But I made some substitutions and we lost some rhythm, but I wanted to give the guys on the bench decent game-time. If you’re not going to bring guys on when you’re 31-14 up, then when are you?

“We were far ahead and it would not have been fair to not give the subs a decent run. But we lost a bit of cohesion and we didn’t gel as much as we did in the first half,” White said.