Day one of the first Test in 30 years in Guyana was a dramatic one with 17 wickets falling in the second Test between the West Indies and Proteas.

South Africa won the toss and had the bat first, and were bowled out for 160 runs with Dane Piedt of the Knights top-scoring with 38 not out, while Shamar Joseph playing his first Test on his home ground took 5/33. David Bedingham in turn scored 28, while Tristan Stubbs contributed with a knock of 26 runs.

Piedt as well as the seamer Nandré Burger saved South Africa’s innings with a 63-run partnership for the tenth wicket as the Proteas were in deep trouble at 97/9 after 36.1 overs. Burger contributed 23 runs to the partnership.

Dane Piedt. Picture: Cricinfo

In reply, the Windies were reeling at 97/7 at the close of play thanks to 4/18 in six overs by the allrounder Wiaan Mulder, while Nandré Burger struck twice and Keshav Maharaj took one wicket.

The Windies allrounder, Jason Holder, is their current top-scorer and has given his team a fighting chance with a well-played 33 not out at stumps. Keacy Carty, in turn, scored 26 runs. Mulder said the tenth-wicket partnership gave them something to bowl to and that was very important.

‘Score when you can score, and don’t be a sitting duck’

“I think generally we just tried to take it as deep as we can, especially with that last wicket partnership, we know that can break a lot of teams when they can just keep putting on runs,” said Mulder.

“I think it was just to keep it simple, score when you can score, and don’t be a sitting duck. That’s exactly what they did and they did a great job. That’s a really difficult thing to say, and I think the important thing is we had something to bowl to.

The allrounder added that it was also important to try and keep things simple with the ball by sticking to the basics. “If you watch the way they bowled, there was a lot in the pitch and we tried to get as much as we can out of it.

“We went through a little phase where we got a little bit greedy, me in particular, but I think generally the guys did a good job in bowling top of off-stump and that’s where all the action happened.

‘I just tried to present to seam and get a little bit of movement off the pitch’

“I think similar to what Shamar did, to be honest, I just tried to present to seam and get a little bit of movement off the pitch. A lot went my way today, I just tried to keep it simple, and I didn’t try to do anything magically, I tried to bowl in the middle of the crease and hit the top of the stumps.”

Play in Georgetown resumes on Friday at 16:00.

OFM Sport/Morgan Piek cg/mvh