Maharaj happy to do the bulk of the bowling in the West Indies

The Proteas’ first choice spinner, Keshav Maharaj, says he is happy to bowl many overs and carry the South African bowling attack ahead of the second Test against the West Indies, starting in Providence, Guyana, on Thursday.

The first Test between the nations ended in a draw on Sunday after a total of seven sessions were lost due to rain.

Maharaj though did the bulk of the bowling for his team on what he called a “placid” pitch. He sent down 66.2 overs in total, more than double that of any other bowler in the Proteas team, and ultimately claimed match figures of eight for 164.

Maharaj though said he didn’t mind bowling a lot and that he’d be happy to turn his arm over if “woken up in the middle of the night”.

‘Proud of effort’

“My passion is spin bowling. I’d do it in the middle of the night if you woke me up and asked me to bowl,” he said after the first Test in Port of Spain.

“I knew I’d be bowling a lot (in the first Test), especially with the team we picked. But I wanted to bowl and didn’t want the captain to take the ball away from me,” he said of the many spells he was asked to bowl by captain Temba Bavuma.

The Proteas went into the game with two fast bowlers, namely Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi, all-rounder Wiaan Mulder and Maharaj as bowling options. Aiden Markram was also called on to bowl some spin.

Maharaj said conditions at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad became tame because of all the rain that fell, that made taking wickets extremely difficult.

“I think we can be proud of our effort. We lost seven sessions, but will take a lot of confidence from the match.

“I think we had the upperhand, and maybe it would have gone our way. We tried to make a game of it.

“The wicket got better and better though as the game went on. Without all the rain it would have deteriorated more, so the weather played a big part; it didn’t offer much and was slow.”

Second Test in Guyana

SA’s premier spin bowler said he was excited to get back into action in Guyana from Thursday.

“I would love it to be more spin friendly. I’m relishing the opportunity and can hopefully put in a repeat performance from the last Test.”

Maharaj said there were not too many issues for the team to deal with post the first Test. “Maybe there were a few soft dismissals, and with the ball we could limit a few boundary options … if I’m going to be hyper critical.”