Proteas profit as West Indies serve up rubbish with the ball before lunch

The Proteas took advantage of desperately poor bowling from the West Indies to put themselves in the perfect position to dominate the second Test that started in sunny conditions here Wednesday morning.

The Proteas went to lunch on 133/1, a scoring rate of 4.4 an over, with Aiden Markram having registered the 10th half-century of his career.

A patchy, unattractive surface greeted the two teams, with both sides acknowledging the role spin would play by picking front-line tweakers in their starting line-ups — two in the case of the Proteas.

Despite the changing nature of the surface here, it being the Wanderers the first session usually provides assistance to the seamers. However the West Indies bowlers were nowhere near good enough to exploit those conditions.

There was zero control or consistency, in a listless bowling effort, with Alzarri Joseph, who took a first innings ‘five-fer’ in Centurion last week, looking like someone who’d had a bad night’s sleep.

Dean Elgar and Aiden Markram eased into their work, both driving crisply when the ball was over-pitched and when the West Indies tried to correct themselves, they were too short allowing liberal use of the cut and pull from the two Proteas openers.

It was a fluent innings from Elgar who quickly gained the measure of the surface and most likely couldn’t believe his eyes at the number of freebies on offer. The last over of Joseph’s first spell summed up the West Indies’ morning; Elgar cut the first ball — short and wide for four — drove the next delivery — overpitched down the ground for another boundary — and two balls later Markram drove the third boundary in the over, against another ball that was over-pitched.

Joseph conceded 26 runs in that first spell, with the openers hitting six fours off him.

The West Indies included left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie in the starting team in place of Shannon Gabriel because of the conditions, but his opening spell was wretched too — lacking control of both line and length.

Which is why Elgar was so filthy at his dismissal; a top edged sweep to a ball, wide of leg-stump, with the ball drifting to Roston Chase, who did well to catch it diving forward.

Elgar knows he missed an opportunity to record a first Test hundred in two years and while an opening stand of 76 provided a good foundation, with Elgar scoring 42, it was an innings, given the conditions and in particular the bowling, which should have been worth so much more.

Markram turned his start into a half century hitting 10 fours, sharing a stand worth 57 runs with Tony de Zorzi, who was not out on 31 at the break.

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