Rabada warns of tough Newlands conditions

England took the momentum in the last half hour of the day and the attack will need to learn from their shortcomings as they look to take the last remaining five wickets.

 

“We always knew that we needed to pick up wickets quickly with the second new ball, we saw that as our chance to pick up wickets,” Kagiso Rabada said at stumps after a contribution of  3/74.

“I don’t know why Morne (Morkel) didn’t use the new ball, I don’t know what Hashim’s thoughts were at that time. I thought Stokes was playing well at that time and Bairstow was a bit calmer. Stokes was in, he took his chance, he drove one off Morris and it would have landed straight to gully. He did get a bit lucky but they played shots and executed. Tomorrow we will have to be tight and knock them over quickly.”

 

Morkel is injury free and will look to lead the attack on day two after a good overnight rest following a lengthy contribution on the opening day.

 

The 20-year-old Rabada took a liking to the bouncier more conducive conditions at Newlands following his Test debut in Indian conditions, and admitted it took him some time to find his rhythm after a month without competitive cricket.  

 

“This was a good cricketing wicket,” Rabada said. “ It was very tough, I didn’t feel great rhythm and the margin for error is small on this wicket when you  are bowling to good players. I haven’t been  match bowling fit so it was a bit of a fight, but it went okay.

 

“There was something in it,” he said of the wicket. “It was tough running in from the Kelvin Grove end because of the wind but the other side from the top end (Wynberg End) coming in there was a bit more bounce. There are a few things to work on but we have assessed what we need to do and tomorrow we will try to implement that.” 

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