The Proteas’ first sighting of the pink ball in a day-night match turned out to be fruitful on the opening day of their Australian tour in Adelaide on Saturday.
Although the Cricket Australia XI was made up exclusively of young players – no one was older than 22 and the youngest was 17 – coach Russell Domingo would’ve been delighted to see a number of his stalwarts get among the runs at the Adelaide Oval, the venue of the final Test against Australia, which will be played under lights as well.
South Africa ended the day on 415 all out off 89.5 overs at stumps, with wicket-keeper Quinton de Kock, batting at No 8, setting the standard for the tourists with a sparkling 122 off just 103 balls (16x4, 3x6) before he retired out in the two-day warm-up game.
A highlights video on the cricket.com.au website showed that De Kock found the boundary all around the wicket, despite reportedly batting with a viral infection that forced him to retire from his innings, and will keep him off the field on Sunday.
JP Duminy also played his full array of strokes for a well-played 97 off 143 balls (10x4), while Hashim Amla took a break after reaching his 50 off 64 deliveries (6x4).
Left-handed opener Dean Elgar got to 43 before being caught, but Stephen Cook (5), Rilee Rossouw (8), captain Faf du Plessis (8) and Temba Bavuma (11) didn’t get going.
The in-form De Kock, though, said afterwards that the pink ball wasn’t any different to the white or red ball. “I actually thought it was quite nice during the twilight period,” he said.
“Early on it was getting used to it, and I found that a little bit more difficult. But I think that’s part of any white ball, red ball cricket anyway – the first couple of balls, so when I started getting used to it and started getting ‘in’, it was much easier.
“To me there’s no difference. I’m not one to over-think it, a ball’s a ball and I just play the way I should be playing in that situation. It was just normal going at that time (the twilight period). You could see everything, nothing was different… from the normal four-day game at that time of the day.”
Vernon Philander would have pleased to get a few runs behind his name as well with a breezy 34 off 49 balls (7x4), but Domingo will be more interested to see how Philander and the rest of attack fare with the pink ball on Sunday.
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