The first day of the South Africa tour of Australia ended up being an enthralling day of Test cricket as it had everything in it – a collapse, a comeback, some aggressive batting and then wickets again late in the day at the Gabba in Brisbane. Australia will be the happier side at the end of the first day of the first Test, however, they would have liked a less wicket to have fallen down as they lost the set batter Steve Smith and the night watchman Scott Boland before the stumps.
Australian bowlers wrapped up the South African innings rather quickly in less than 49 overs with all four main bowlers sharing the 10 wickets. It was expected that the South African pacers would get a similar purchase from the green Gabba wicket and that’s exactly what happened. Kagiso Rabada took the big wicket of David Warner on the very first ball of the Australian innings and he might have a big gratitude to pay to Khaya Zondo, who took one of the best catches by a short-leg fielder.
Rabada bowled a bouncer at Warner first-up and the batter had to jump and got the ball to hit from inside half of the bat, which lobbed up in the air, high of the short-leg fielder. It seemed as if it would go above the leaping Zondo, however, the fielder put in a full-length jump to pluck the ball out of thin air and hold on to what was a sensational grab.
Zondo was ecstatic as were his teammates, who quickly gathered around him to congratulate him for a blinder.
South Africa got a couple of more quick wickets before Steve Smith and Travis Head put on 117 runs for the 4th wicket. Head stayed unbeaten on 78 off 77 while Smith got out for 36 in the dying moments of the first day. The visitors took one more wicket of the night watchman Scott Boland before the end of the day’s play to reduce Australia to 144/5.
Australia are still 8 runs behind and the visitors wouldn’t want them to get a significant lead.
