Debutant Nortje makes his mark as test heavily tilted in SA favour

The Warriors fast bowler picked up the key wickets of Jonny Bairstow (1) and Ben Stokes (35) in successive overs in the England first innings, bowled and caught behind respectively, with fine bowling and then produced the stoutest of efforts with the bat as nightwatchman on Saturday.

Nortje, whose highest franchise score is just 26, survived more than five overs on the second evening and then hung around for nearly two hours on Friday morning, scoring a defiant 40 that helped Rassie van der Dussen (51) add 91 for the fifth wicket, giving South Africa a vital solid start to the day.

It enabled the Proteas to score 272 in their second innings,  setting England a massive 376 for victory. The tourists made a great start to their chase, however, reaching 121 for one at stumps.

“I’ve enjoyed it so far, especially with the bat, being able to do my job and see out the night. And then today I just tried to focus on every over, just stay in. Getting fifty did cross my mind at one stage, but then I told myself just to focus. The bowling has also been good although I obviously would have liked to strike today. But we put in a good investment session, kept the run-rate down and hopefully we will strike tomorrow.

“The pitch was a bit better for batting today but hopefully it will be more up-and-down tomorrow. We just need to build pressure and stick to what we do best. There’s nothing special we need to do, we just have to do the basics for a long time. That’s where [bowling coach] Charl Langeveldt’s experience has really helped, he stresses the simple stuff and doing the basics,” Nortje said after the close of play on day three of the first Test in Centurion.

Nortje survived a torrid end to the second day when Jofra Archer bowled him successive beamers and was extremely fortunate to escape being banned from bowling for the rest of the innings, thanks to pathetically weak officiating. But the Uitenhage product proved that he was far from being a lamb to the slaughter with the tremendous determination he showed with the bat on Saturday.

“Ja, I was not very happy about it. The second beamer was definitely dangerous to me, I wouldn’t have ducked if it wasn’t at my head. It went over my head after I ducked and the initial call was a no-ball. But anyway, it’s out of our control,” Nortje said.

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