“As a player, you want to perform when the pressure is on. We were definitely under a little bit of pressure early on,” said Proteas batsman, Rassie van der Dussen, who rescued South Africa with an unbeaten 75-run innings after some penetrative West Indian bowling reduced them to 54/6.
“When we started the day, we knew we were 150 ahead, so we wanted to play like we were on the front foot,” explained van der Dussen. The aggressive approach cost South Africa, as Kyle Mayers and Kemar Roach took seven wickets between them. As opposed to bowlers who can deliver express pace, Mayers’ accuracy was difficult to navigate for the South African batsmen. “With the extra pace, you sometimes play and miss, and the ball sort of zips past the outside edge, whereas a guy who is not operating at 135, you almost see the movement and your hands follow it. It’s just a natural instinct.”
Van der Dussen refused to attributed South Africa’s second innings batting collapse to a sense of complacency that might have crept in after a dominant bowling performance in the first innings and a lead of 149 runs. “I’ll give credit to their bowlers. They showed in their fielding that they’re a really dangerous bowling attack. Sometimes you’ve got to say well-played to the opposition, they had a good spell there – the first hour or two, but we knew that if we had one good partnership with that lead we built up, that we’ll be in a strong position.
Van der Dussen said his partnership with Kagiso Rabadaindicated that the pitch had started to get more placid, and it might be challenging for the bowlers to take wickets. “That also showed that the pitch is getting a little bit more placid, we’ll take the lessons from that and know that if they do have a partnership, we’re going to have to be really disciplined in sticking to our lines and lengths, and really work for our wickets.”
Rating his knock as a “good innings,” van der Dussen said, “If we get that win, in retrospect that innings might look a little bit better, but for now, it’s a decent innings.”
