Cape Town, Aug 1: The Headingley pitch may suit South African pacer Vernon Philander, who had a rare, “quiet” outing by his standards over the past few months, in his team’s first-Test thrashing of England at The Oval.
The pitch for the opening Test was less than ideal for his brand of bowling, slow and abrasive, as it was played unusually without the aid of cloud cover.
Headingley is famous for aiding seam bowling, whether exponents of it are of the genuinely express variety or not, and especially when low clouds install themselves, as they so often do over the northern county of Yorkshire, Sport24 reports.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with Philander’s economy, discipline or durability at The Oval, although that was the first of his eventful eight Tests thus far where he has not managed to grab a match haul of five wickets or more.
South Africa may well be required to bat rather deeper than they did in the first Test, where nobody from AB de Villiers downward even got a knock, but it is handy to know that in Jacques Rudolph, the probable No 6, lies someone with an intimate knowledge of the requirements at the Headingley crease from his successful years with Yorkshire.
© ANI
