Aussie left-hander delighted after career-best 190

Wiaan Mulder hopes South Africa’s batters can match the monstrous efforts of Australian left hander Matt Renshaw and put some hurt into the tourists on the third day day of the first Test at Kingsmead.

South Africa finished Saturday on 27/1, trailing Australia by 363 runs. Renshaw was the star on day two, contributing a career-best 190 helping Australia to recover from 124/6 to reach 390 in their first innings. It was Renshaw’s first hundred in nearly ten years, with the landmark brought up with a meaty clip through midwicket.

“When I hit the ball, I was screaming, ‘go, go, go,’” Renshaw said afterwards. “It was pretty emotional.”

He batted for 12 minutes shy of eight hours, faced 397 balls, hitting 21 fours and a six.

“Kudos to Matt Renshaw who played the conditions as well as anyone,” said Mulder, who was SA’s most successful bowler, finishing with 4/68.

“Renshaw played beautifully. He played what was in front of him. He left well. It looked like he turned down runs, but him keeping the strike was the most important thing at the time. You could see the partnerships were built around him. He played the situation as well as anyone would have.”

Mulder explained that South Africa could have come up with better plans for bowling at Renshaw and perhaps, as good as his management of the strike was, the hosts could have been more creative.

“I don’t think anything went wrong. We executed most of our plans. Maybe we could have bowled a touch fuller. Maybe here and there we got some tactical things wrong.

“Bowling to him it seemed like he got off strike so easily, whenever he wanted to. His approach was so different for the first four balls to the last two balls, which made it difficult to keep him on strike,” said Mulder.

“Maybe we could have been smarter with the field…maybe that is something to think about as the game progresses. Maybe we need to make it hard for a batter playing with the tail to get off strike. It is something we need to work on.”

Renshaw took delight from his role in putting miles into the legs of the South African bowlers. Marco Jansen bowled 31 overs, Wiaan Mulder 27 and Anrich Nortje, playing his first Test in three years, 28.

“That was the benefit for us, was just keeping them out in the field,” said Renshaw.

Mulder hopes the Proteas batters can do the same on Sunday. “Hopefully we can put miles into the Aussies’ legs tomorrow,” he said.

“The ball felt really slow off the surface, there was not a lot of sideways movement. It will get more up and down as the Test goes on.”