Not the kind of wickets we really want to be playing cricket on, said Dale Steyn of the pitch at the Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein on Wednesday, October 3.
The pitch looked a bit odd, Steyn later describing it as having a lot of plates. Very early on, Kyle Jarvis bowled Reeza Hendricks with one that shot through off a length, and soon after, Jarvis got one to jump and bite at Heinrich Klaasen from a similar area.
It didn’t get any better. If anything, after Steyn had struck his maiden international half-century to help South Africa get to 198, he and Lungi Ngidi, with their greater pace, made the Zimbabweans hop around.
https://twitter.com/PatSymcox77/status/1047515579677126656
Craig Ervine copped one on the glove and then on the helmet off Steyn, and Brendan Taylor, Hamilton Masakadza and others also suffered. Enough for Makhaya Ntini in live commentary to say, “Wow, that’s danger!” at one point.
Depending on what the match officials say in their report, Bloemfontein could be in trouble, especially after a One-Day Cup game in March last year – between Knights and Warriors – had to be called off because of poor pitch conditions.
“I’m not really a groundsman, you know. What I can say is that I’ve played a lot of cricket here in Bloem before, I haven’t seen so many plates before, which kind of gives you the impression that if there’s one loose plate then it won’t bounce, and if there’s one solid plate, you’ll get one that just sort of takes off from the length. So, uhh,” Steyn trailed off.
