Cricket: Trist bristles at test match controversies

By RICHARD BOOCK in South Africa

BLOEMFONTEIN - When it comes to firing the odd salvo in South Africa, Bloemfontein's 90mm Eland tank is proving no match for New Zealand cricket coach David Trist.

In keeping with the natural theme of the Free State, the Panzer armoured vehicle has been on standby each day during this first test at Goodyear Park - not for security reasons, but in order to mark Allan Donald's much-hyped progress towards his 300th test wicket.

Only one blast was required on the second day as New Zealand fought for survival in the wake of South Africa's first innings total of 471 for nine declared.

But in any case, the majority of noise has been coming from the New Zealand coach at the end-of-day press conferences.

While most of the batsman have been content to sit on the back foot for the first couple of days, Trist has been on the front foot from the start, bridling over a technical hitch which involved an attempted run-out of key batsman Jacques Kallis on Saturday, and then questioning the catch which ended Mathew Sinclair's innings in the last session yesterday.

Trist, who coached Eastern Province for several years and probably feels he has some inside information on South African tactics, was hopping mad about the lack of an adequate replay of the attempted run-out of Kallis, who was on 76 at the time and who finished with his highest test score of 160.

But he was even more animated after bad light stopped play yesterday, at which point New Zealand were struggling at 54 for two, still needing another 218 to avoid the follow-on, and 417 runs in arrears.

The tourists had just watched Mark Richardson become Donald's 298th test victim, when Sinclair played loosely at Shaun Pollock, offering first slip Daryl Cullinan a chance which he at first seemed to accept, before throwing the ball away as he tumbled over the grass.

The incident immediately brought back memories of Herschelle Gibbs' similar gaffe in last year's World Cup semifinal against Australia, but on this occasion third umpire Rudi Koertzen decided the catch had been completed and gave Sinclair the red light.

Although relays seemed to indicate that Cullinan had initially controlled the catch before releasing the ball, they also clearly showed he was falling over at the point he threw it away, which could have been enough to disallow the appeal.

Rule 32 of International Cricket Council laws states that "the act of making the catch shall start from the time when a fielder first handles the ball and shall end when a fielder obtains complete control both over the ball and over his own movement."

Trist, who was already livid about the 90-minute delay in finding the correct replay of Kallis' run-out (he was eventually shown to be in), was similarly scathing about the decision on Sinclair, and just for good measure, also had a couple of pot-shots at the South Africans.

But his main gripe was over the use of a slow-motion replay to determine an issue which involved measuring time.

"The slow-motion replay gives that sort of thing far more credibility than it has in real time, but I guess you win some and lose some with technology over here - as we now know.

"The slow motion simply gives it more credibility, and that's all I'll say."

However, after assessing his side's slightly improved performance on the second day, he again threw down the gauntlet to the South Africans, suggesting they were over-rated and not as dominant over the weakened New Zealand side as many people expected them to be.

Virtually out of the game after the first day when South Africa strode through to 270 for three, the tourists found a shade more consistency on the second, taking six wickets for 201 runs before undoing some of their good work with the two setbacks before stumps.

SOUTH AFRICA

Total for 9 wkts dec, 142.1 overs 471

Fall: 1/0 (Dippenaar), 2/97 (Kirsten), 3/164 (Cullinan), 4/279 (Kallis), 5/304 (McKenzie), 6/330 (Klusener), 7/409 (Boje), 8/429 (Boucher), 9/471 (Pollock).

Bowling: S. O'Connor 30-4-87-3 (1nb), D. Tuffey 26-6-96-0 (8nb), C. Martin 22.1-4-89-3, B. Walker 27-4-92-2, N. Astle 24-5-57-1, C. McMillan 13-2-38-0 (1nb).

NEW ZEALAND

Total for 2 wkts, 20.2 overs 54

Fall: 1/28 (Richardson), 2/29 (Sinclair).

Bowling: A. Donald 7-1-27-1 (1nb), S. Pollock 7-4-10-1, M. Ntini 3.2-1-4-0, J. Kallis 3-0-11-0 (1nb, 2w)