Tag Oval-2012

South Africa’s bowling coach Allan Donald didn’t express much disappointment over not being able to get England on the mat, despite the good start his team had. South Africa was able to send the English captain Andrew Strauss back to the pavilion on just the fourth delivery of the match, but were not able to capitalise on that and allowed England to end the day at 267/3 at stumps.

Former bowling legend, Donald said, “We obviously got off to a great start with Strauss' wicket. There were times that I thought we could have been a little more aggressive in certain situations, but we never allowed England to run away with the day.” He described the day’s play as a “pretty much a hard day’s Test cricket” and seemed confident that both teams were evenly matched.

Donald lauded the patience displayed by the English batsmen, especially Alistair Cook, who went on to make an unbeaten century. “Take nothing away from England; I thought they batted really well and Alastair Cook showed immense discipline and concentration in how he left the ball. He made us come to him at times,” Donald said.

For day two, Donald has a plan already. He knows that it’s important for the South African bowlers to pick up early wickets and not allow England’s batsmen to have a long partnership. Donald said, “We've got to make inroads tomorrow early. That's our big goal, to open up an end and carry it on from there. It's a huge day for us tomorrow.”

South Africa’s leading paceman Dale Steyn was seen with heavy strapping on his right foot, which gave way to a number of alarm bells among South African fans and the media in general. Donald though, was quick to disburse any inkling of the injury having any affect whatsoever on Steyn. He rubbished all such reports by saying, “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Dale Steyn. I do not know where this rumour came from and I can assure you that Dale Steyn is absolutely fine.”