Cricket: Battle of attrition

By RICHARD BOOCK

Maybe it would have been better to have swapped the test pitch after all. Barely five overs were needed yesterday morning before the worst fears were being realised, and South African batsmen Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs were streaking towards the record for the most successful opening combination in the game.

On a pitch already containing remarkable similarities to nearby Sandringham Rd, the pair RSVP'd Stephen Fleming's invitation to bat to the tune of 177, in the process becoming the second most successful opening partnership in tests.

Only the pre-World War II combination of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe have a superior record as an opening pair, averaging 87.81 in 25 tests between 1924 and 1930, including 15 century stands.

Smith and Gibbs laid the platform for South Africa's eventual first-day total of 231 for two, their opening stand of 177 boosting their career average from 81.46 to 84.76, and confirming all predictions that the pitch would contain few problems.

From the moment of the pre-game pitch-report the test seemed consigned to a battle of attrition, the only slight concern for batsmen coming from an occasional variation in bounce.

Sent in to bat after Fleming won his second toss in nine attempts, South Africa had few moments of anxiety in the opening session, Gibbs and Smith prospering against a New Zealand attack that appeared to lack a cutting edge.

Gibbs was bowled by Chris Cairns on the stroke of the afternoon tea gong for 80, and Smith was trapped in front by the first ball after the resumption, departing just 12 runs short of his seventh test century.

The attention now has turned to Jacques Kallis and Cairns, both of whom stood on the brink of major milestones last night, and are well-placed to push towards history today.

Cairns needs just one more wicket to become the 44th player in the world to take 200 test wickets, and Kallis has even bigger shoes to fill, requiring only 61 more runs to equal Sir Donald Bradman's record of centuries in six consecutive tests.

The magnificent man and his driving machine was in a sedate mood yesterday as he and Jacques Rudolph worked to restore South Africa's momentum, the pair bleeding only 54 runs out of New Zealand in the final 32-over session.

His useful efficient self at the start of his innings, Kallis collected his first 24 runs off 39 balls and then took another 64 balls to score his next 15, surviving a couple of fortuitous miscues along the way.

The irony was that none of the South African batsmen felt genuinely "in" on the sluggish surface, which was at the centre of a radical pitch-swapping proposition before being vetoed by NZC.

"We thought we might get a window of opportunity if we bowled first, but the window wasn't as big as we hoped," Fleming said last night.

"I'm disappointed and surprised that we couldn't extract more out of it, and I think that tempted our bowlers to search a bit hard, and we lost our lines and lengths.

"It might have been a bit ragged early on, but it was just a case of the guys trying too hard."

Fleming said he was surprised how much the pitch had aged in terms of its colour and appearance, and confirmed his side were forced to fall back on containment to prevent South Africa from getting too far ahead.