NZ vs SA | 2nd Test | Day 4: Proteas well poised to level series

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Dean Elgar’s South Africa are inching closer to an incredible Test match win at Wellington after four days' play. If the visitors can manage to take New Zealand’s final 6 wickets, they will stage an incredible turnaround after losing their first match by an innings and 276 runs.

At the end of fourth day’s play, South Africa needed six wickets to win with 332 runs still in the bank. The task should not be hard for the visitors who have breathed fire with the ball in hand. Kagiso Rabada, already has seven wickets in this game, alongside Marco Jansen who scalped four in the first innings. While the lanky left hander remains wicketless in the second, he would have high hopes from the morning session which might remain quite cloudy on Day 5.

Unlike the rest of the match, which saw momentum shift in almost every phase of the play, Day 4 completely belonged to South Africa. First, it was wicket keeper Kyle Verreynne who scored a century to tilt the scales in favour of the visitors, before Kagiso Rabada blasted his career best 47 off 34 balls to stretch SA’s lead to a mammoth 400+ runs. Verreynne's tempo was crucial for South Africa today after their initial collapse on Day 3, but the batter paced his innings to perfection playing his shots all across the ground. 

He found support in Wiaan Mulder who scored 35 off 91 before getting out to Kyle Jamieson. The partnership between the two of them lasted over 30 overs essentially setting the tone for the rest of the day. The hosts got tired and a late onslaught by Rabada turned out to be a mood killer for the Kiwi who would have hoped to take the game away from the visitors.

Coming into bowl, Rabada continued from here he left off in the first innings, dismissing the openers yet again in this Test match. Rabada was too much to handle for the openers as he edged one back to gully and removed the captain by trapping him at short leg. However, Rabada was not the best bowler on the day as Keshav Maharaj rewarded the SA thinktank by bowling two absolute rippers to Henry Nicholls and Daryl Mitchell, shattering the stumps on both occasions.

As it stands, the Kiwis are down by four wickets for 94 runs and need to chase down a record score in the history of Test cricket to win the game. At the end of day’s play they have Devon Conway batting at 60 off 127 balls alongside Tom Blundell at 1 off 17. They pitch has already shown signs that one is rewarded for playing their shots here, but it is unlikely that NZ will try to chase this down. With centurion from the first innings, Colin de Grandomme still to come, NZ will be hoping for a little help from the weather if they are to force their opposition to a draw in the final day.

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Shan Masood’s strategy after Rizwan’s dismissal was to keep ticking off singles, till Multan could see off some tough overs before launching in an all out assault. In the final ball of the 5th over, Masood tapped a fuller length ball to cover with soft hands and stormed out for a single. A run at that short a distance needed utmost commitment and trust of the non-striker, something that the 23-year-old Aamer Amzat did not have on his senior partner. Amzat hesitated before saying no, and chose not to move a single step off his crease. This ended up leaving Masood in the middle of the pitch, before Fakhar Zaman picked the ball, took his own sweet time, and then threw it straight into the stumps. Masood departed on 19 off 15, hurling abuses at his partner as Multan went into a frenzy. The collapse Three more wickets came in the next six overs as Multan found it difficult to negotiate the likes of Zaman Khan and Hafeez. 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After Hafeez’s departure, it was once again Namibian David Wiese who smashed 28 off 8 balls to take Lahore to a safe score. Conclusion We have said this once and we will say this again, Lahore Qalandars are a proper team that feed off the energy of each other on the pitch. On the days their superman Fakhar and Shaheen lost control, Mohammad Hafeez, Wiese and Zaman Khan shone through to win a high pressure game in front of their home crowd. And that showed in the post match presentation as well where Fakhar Zaman won the batter of the tournament and Zaman Khan was rewarded with the emerging player trophy. Lahore’s first PSL win was as deserved as it gets and the premier T20 tournament in Pakistan would be glad that they were able to finish it without any interruptions. The 2022 PSL will go a long way to mend Pakistan’s relationships with other cricketing nations and give players confidence to return to a country that loves its cricket through and through.