Watch: William O’Rourke, New Zealand’s Test cap No.286, removed South Africa captain Neil Brand for his first Test wicket during the opening day of the Hamilton Test.
South Africa ended the day on 220-6, having recovered from a top-order slide, with Ruan de Swardt and Shaun von Berg stitching together an unbeaten 70-run stand till stumps.
Brand was the second wicket to fall, in O’Rourke’s third over. The 22-year-old O’Rourke, born in Surrey, angled the ball into Brand to strike him on the pads. Pitched outside off, the ball moved into the left-hander, whizzing past his bat and hitting him on the front pad, with little footwork to trouble it.
The umpire gave him out, but Brand wasn’t convinced, asking for a review. Known to generate good bounce from his height, the question was if O’Rourke’s ball had jumped up enough to go past the stumps.
Replays showed that the ball would have hit the top of middle stump, confirming the original decision.
It was O’Rourke’s 51st first-class wicket. He finished the day with figures of 14-3-47-1.
Watch O’Rourke’s first wicket here:
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