Ken Borland

The Wanderers pitch went through several character changes on Wednesday, the opening day of the second Test between South Africa and the West Indies: for much of the day it seemed as flat as one of those batting beauties in Sharjah, but it ended with medium-pacer Kyle Mayers toying with the batsmen with movement off the seam, while the pitch had also been spinning.

Through all that, having won an important toss and batted, the Proteas closed on 311 for seven. That solid total was built around an excellent display by the top-order, which took them to 247 for two at tea. The final session belonged to the West Indies as Mayers claimed two late wickets and the South African middle-order again faltered.

The opening hour, under overcast skies, saw the new ball move around, but the West Indies did not bowl particularly well and Dean Elgar and Aiden Markram’s positive approach saw them prosper.

As the skies cleared and the moisture burnt off, Elgar and Markram took control. They added 76 for the first wicket to go with their 141 on the first day of the first Test, and it was totally against the run of play when Elgar was dismissed for 42. It was a fluent rather than a fighting innings by the left-hander, coming off just 54 balls with seven fours.

Elgar’s propensity to get himself out in this series will worry him a little, and on Wednesday he swept a delivery down leg from left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie to short fine-leg diving forward.

The best batting of the day then followed as Markram, driving and pulling imperiously, and Tony de Zorzi, ruthless through square on the off-side, added 116 for the second wicket in a little more than an hour-and-a-half.

Markram was on the brink of a second successive century midway through the second session and was so dominant he probably felt he could get to three figures with some cute improvisation. Trying to scoop-sweep Motie, he did not connect properly and Jermaine Blackwood ran from slip to the leg-side to take the catch. Markram was out for 96 off only 139 deliveries, having struck 17 fours, another innings of undeniable class as the 28-year-old resurrects his Test career.

De Zorzi, the youngster of the batting line-up, batted for longer than anyone else on the first day: 219 minutes. He saw, and adapted to, all the challenges of the changing pitch. Having scored 85, he was in position to push for a maiden Test century in just his third innings, but Motie obtained some sharp turn to bowl the left-hander through the gate as he looked for an aggressive drive.

It was an innings that showcased defiant defence as well as some fine strokeplay, evidence that this former SA U19 captain has a game that is now maturing.

“Obviously it was a good opportunity to get a hundred, Dean and Aiden having given the innings a nice base,” De Zorzi said after the close of play. “So I was disappointed not to get over the line, I just tried to be too greedy against that particular ball.

“The pitch did change through the day, it was a bit soft in the morning because of the moisture, but after lunch it was harder because of the sun and a bit quicker, and the nicks started carrying. There was also a bit of turn.

“From my SA U19 days, a lot has changed. I may have been the captain but I was not the star of that side and I went back to club cricket afterwards. It’s been a long process and I’ve done a lot of dirty work to get there. Things are starting to happen and I’m just really happy to be here,” De Zorzi said.

From 247 for two, the rest of the day became a bit like hard admin for the Proteas. Temba Bavuma (28) notched the third successive fifty partnership as he put on 56 for the third wicket with De Zorzi.

But Bavuma then suffered a misjudgement, shouldering arms to a Jason Holder delivery that pitched on the large bare patch at the Golf Course End and was trapped lbw.

Ryan Rickelton scored 22 but then tried to cut an Alzarri Joseph delivery that he should have left with the second new ball imminent.

Then Mayers returned to produce two beautiful deliveries and two late wickets that left the West Indies feeling good about the last session in which they claimed five wickets for 64 runs in 27.2 overs.

Wiaan Mulder (12) was bowled through the gate by a ball that zipped back into him, while Simon Harmer (1) received a wobble-seam delivery that nipped away just enough to find his edge and have him caught behind for a single, off what became the last ball of the day.

Heinrich Klaasen will be batting with the tail on Thursday morning, having reached 17 not out.

Chasing down 305 in the last innings on a SuperSport Park pitch offering variable bounce and plenty of movement will remain a quixotic prospect for South Africa as they struggled to stumps with four wickets down on the fourth day of the first Test at Centurion on Wednesday.

Led by captain Dean Elgar’s defiant 52 not out, the Proteas closed on 94/4, which leaves them with 211 runs still to get on the final day for an unlikely victory. No team has ever reached 300 in the fourth innings of a Test at SuperSport Park.

Elgar has been at the crease for more than three hours, facing 122 deliveries, and has been unfazed by the many times he has been beaten, or struck on the body. He and a similarly phlegmatic Rassie van der Dussen (11) spent 102 minutes together defying the conditions and the venomous Indian attack, lifting the hopes of the home team and their supporters.

But India’s spearhead, Jasprit Bumrah, returned to the attack five overs before the close and struck a vital blow with just his fourth delivery. Van der Dussen misjudged a leave and Bumrah, who has been bringing the ball back sharply so often in this Test, slanted the delivery straight into off stump.

Nightwatchman Keshav Maharaj was then showing his mettle with the bat to reach 8 with just two balls remaining in the day when Bumrah cleaned him up with a tremendous yorker into the base of leg-stump.

South Africa have also lost the wickets of Aiden Markram (1), who was also trying to leave the ball but withdrew his bat too late and bottom-edged Mohammed Shami into his stumps, and Keegan Petersen (17), who was beaten by some late away movement by Mohammed Siraj and caught behind the wicket.

India’s batsmen were also exposed to the whole gamut of difficulties posed by the surface in their second innings, being bowled out for just 174 in 50.3 overs.

Opener and first-innings centurion Lokesh Rahul (23) and Cheteshwar Pujara (16) batted time and both survived for nearly two hours before both fell to Lungi Ngidi (10-2-31-2).

Ajinkya Rahane (20) and Rishabh Pant (34) decided attack was the way to go and both scored at around a run-a-ball, as did Ravichandran Ashwin (14) in a 35-run seventh-wicket stand with Pant.

Their positive approach threatened to really take the lead far beyond South Africa’s reach, but Kagiso Rabada returned to wrap up the tail and finish with 4/42 in 17 hard-working overs.

Marco Jansen completed a satisfactory debut with 4/55 in 13.3 overs.

South African bowling great Vernon Philander said on Wednesday that he experienced no racism during his time in the Proteas team but his support for the Black Lives Matter movement is based on what he classifieds as “inequality” in the cricket system.

Philander was one of 30 former Proteas to last week sign a letter supporting BLM and calling on Cricket South Africa to confront the problem of racial division in the sport. The 35-year-old retired from international cricket at the end of the Test series against England in January, with outstanding figures of 224 wickets in 64 matches, at an average of just 22.32.

“BLM has a totally different meaning in South Africa than abroad, here it stands for equality and respecting peoples’ views, everyone’s, regardless of the colour of their skin. Those questions of inequality are still relevant today if not worse. I support other causes like White farmers being murdered just as much, we’re not discounting one cause to support the other.

“We need to provide a lot more opportunities, we need to start building communities again. For me, transformation has been done completely wrong because we have taken Black cricketers out of their safety zones, out of their own clubs and schools. We need to restore dignity to these communities, give them facilities and coaches, provide the people with opportunities to enhance their lives with job creation,” Philander told The Citizen on Wednesday.

Philander comes from the humble Cape Town suburb of Ravensmead and has had to fight tremendously hard for every bit of the considerable success he has enjoyed. He was initially chosen for South Africa in limited-overs cricket in 2007, but in spite of being the dominant bowler in South African domestic cricket, spearheading the Cape Cobras’ drive to successive four-day titles in 2009/10 and 2010/11, he had to wait until November 2011 to make his return, in the Test side.

His impact was immediate and stunning, but not a surprise to those who had seen him make up for a lack of sheer pace with extraordinary skill and accuracy in franchise cricket.

“When I started playing, things were more chilled although there were one or two incidents in club cricket that caused a lot of upset people, mostly involving players of the older generation. I cannot vouch for any racism in the Proteas although being left out after 2007 without explanation was pretty hard. And my experience in the 2015 World Cup showed me that they need to protect the players much better. The whole team lost, we need to move past this business of blaming transformation or two or three players,” Philander said.

The key for Philander is the huge inequality that makes it much harder for Black players to reach the heights he did.

“We need to see the injustices and understand that they are still happening today. We want this to be a country for everyone but then there needs to be opportunity for everyone. My background was very poor and the time is now to speak up, without hatred but acknowledging that inequality is the big thing. We need to change mindsets and perceptions.

“It will take a massive effort, including from our White counterparts, but if we give all cricketers the same opportunity then we can take the best out of that and the team will really be chosen on merit. This is not about dropping standards, but we need to rebuild communities in order for them to compete on equal ground. We need to close the gaps in terms of facilities and coaching,” Philander said.

The Black Lives Matter logo might not be printed on their playing shirts when cricket returns on Saturday with the Solidarity Cup three-team event in Centurion, but leading White Proteas have now joined the movement and publicly expressed their support for the anti-racism drive.

Cricket South Africa director of cricket Graeme Smith has indicated that the playing shirts had already been printed, for an event that was originally meant to take place on June 27, when the cricketing world began to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement.

Nevertheless, when former Proteas captain Faf du Plessis “takes the knee” on Saturday along with other White players like Rassie van der Dussen, Dwaine Pretorius and Anrich Nortje, it will be a powerful moment of solidarity with Lungi Ngidi and the other Black players who have spoken out in support of BLM.

Du Plessis has even taken matters further by apologising for his comment that the team “don’t see colour” when Temba Bavuma was left out of the Newlands Test against England at the start of the year.

“I surrender my opinions and take the knee as an intercessor. I acknowledge that South Africa is still hugely divided by racism and it is my personal responsibility to do my best to empathise, hear the stories, learn and then be part of the solution with my thoughts, words and actions. I have gotten it wrong before. Good intentions were failed by a lack of perspective when I said on a platform that I don’t see colour. In my ignorance I silenced the struggles of others by placing my own view on it.

“A race problem is a human race problem, if one part of the body hurts, we all stop, we empathise, we get perspective, we learn and then we tend to the hurting part of the body. So I am saying that all lives don’t matter UNTIL Black lives matter. I’m speaking up now, because if I wait to be perfect, I never will. I want to leave a legacy of empathy,” Du Plessis said in an Instagram post on Friday.

Van der Dussen and Pretorius, who both play for the Central Gauteng Lions and have had to wait a long time to kickstart their international careers, said they too support BLM.

“I will be proudly supporting the BLM movement and I will be taking a knee on Saturday. I honestly and wholeheartedly believe it’s the right thing to do. I also believe taking the knee is only the start. To me the BLM movement stands for the most basic right all people across the world deserve and that is the right to not be judged or segmented because of his/her colour, but rather for WHO they are.

“It’s not a movement that says Black lives are MORE important than any other colour. It’s my brother from another mother asking me please see me for WHO I am. Don’t persecute me because of my skin colour. Give me the same benefit of the doubt you would give someone with the same colour as you. Yes, the movement says ‘Black’, but I believe it’s relevant to any colour and race,” Pretorius said on Facebook.

Van der Dussen was asked on Twitter by journalist Max du Preez where he and several other Proteas stood on BLM, and the 31-year-old batsman tweeted in Afrikaans: “I support BLM, I’m against murder, I’m against all murders: physical, character and cultural murders. I support equal opportunities for all. Just because I support BLM does not mean I support violence or Marxism, so I refuse to be labelled by people.”