The wicket certainly had its say in the proceedings. It kept low and consistently provided lateral movement upon the ball hitting the surface, a set of traits that more often than not make the batters’ lives a living hell.
However, the Windies bowlers still had to execute and bowl good lines and lengths to make full use of the assistance the wicket provided on Day One.
Shamar Joseph’s five-for and Jayden Seales’ three-for on Day One saw South Africa stumble to 97/1 inside 40 overs.
However, Dane Piedt and Nandre Burger batted for an additional 16 overs to see South Africa set 160 runs for their first innings total.
“If you watched the way they bowled, there was a lot in the pitch,” Proteas all-rounder Wiaan Mulder told the media.
“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.
“It was just to keep it simple, score when you can score and don’t be a sitting duck. I think that’s exactly what they did and they did a great job.”
With the ball in hand, South Africa put on a mirror image of the Windies’ bowling performance and executed a little better than the hosts.
Leading the charge was Mulder with a stunning four-wicket-haul while Nandre Burger’s two wickets contributed to the Proteas restricting the Windies to 97/7 inside 30 overs.
However, the visitors did give away free runs as they allowed Jason Holder and Gudakesh Motie to put together 41 runs for the seventh wicket.
Mulder emphasised that they were a little greedy as a bowling unit despite being able to put pressure on the hosts on Thursday.
“I think we went through a little phase where we got a little greedy, me in particular. But I think generally, the guys did a good job in bowling top of off and that’s where all the action happened,” he said.
“(I bowled) similar to what Shamar did, to be honest. I just tried to present the seam and get a little bit of movement off the pitch. I think a lot went my way today. I tried to keep it simple. I didn’t try to do anything magically.”
Day Three of the series decider will get under way today at 4pm SAST.