De Kock played a characteristically aggressive innings, hitting the first four balls he faced to the boundary.
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Philander forced Martin Guptill to edge to slips for 8 and next over Steyn had Tom Latham caught behind for 4. Latham tried to leave a delivery that lifted sharply and bounced off his raised bat onto the stumps, and Guptill edged one that seamed away. Both openers were out for a golden duck.
In between, Ross Taylor was trapped leg before wicket by an unplayable ball from Steyn, which skidded through barely above ankle height off a pitch with increasingly unpredictable bounce. There are only two more such instances – MS Dhoni had done it against New Zealand in 2009 and Matt Prior, also against New Zealand, in 2012-13. Watling reviewed, but umpire’s call on impact meant South Africa had their only wicket of the session. With more than five sessions of play left, New Zealand had to record the highest ever run chase on South African soil to win the match.
After lunch, the duo of Nicholls and Watling carried on the fightback.
“It’s a tough wicket to bat on, going up and down a bit”, he said. Could New Zealand’s situation get worse? Wagner too was done in by a yorker from Rabada, that wrapped him low on the pads.
Henry Nicholls made a test-best score of 76 before becoming the last wicket to fall and Steyn’s fifth victim. Talking about his hundred from first innings to AFP, du Plessis said, “There is a lot happening in the wicket and we just needed one guy to anchor the innings and keep them out there as long as possible”.
Opening the innings for the Proteas, de Kock scored 132 runs in the match (including two half-centuries).
A quick kill turned into an agonising death for the Black Caps as South Africa’s ruthless attack toyed with them before claiming a deserved series win at Centurion.
“I think it was probably from day two that that start to happen which is something you don’t see very often, which sort of makes the toss, not that anyone knew at the time, probably quite important”.
Steyn 20-3-66-3, Philander 15-1-43-2, Rabada 16.3-4-62-3, Piedt 7-0-36-1. South Africa decided not to enforce the follow on.
Temba Bavuma (25) and Vernon Philander (3) were the unbeaten batsmen at stumps. Philander was dismissed when he shouldered arms to a Tim Southee delivery that nipped back to uproot the offstump.
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But unlike his predecessors, he pushed on to reach three figures, aided and abetted by all-rounder Stiaan van Zyl, who contributed 35 to a partnership of 84 before falling to Neil Wagner. But there was enough in the wicket to have restricted them to a below-par total. Cook went for 56, Hashim Amla added 58, and JP Duminy was 67 not out as all of South Africa’s top four made half-centuries.
