Tag Futebol

Markram hurt his right hamstring in the field against England and spent the rest of the match on the sidelines

Firdose Moonda04-Mar-2025George Linde, the left-arm spin bowling allrounder, will join the South African squad as a traveling reserve as cover for Aiden Markram at the Champions Trophy. Markram injured his right hamstring in the field against England and spent the rest of the match on the sidelines. He will undergo a fitness test at training on Tuesday evening to determine his availability for the semi-final against New Zealand.Markram is the latest in a massive list of injured players. Anrich Nortje, Gerald Coetzee, Nandre Burger, Lizaad Williams – all fast bowlers – were ruled out even before the tournament started.Linde will join the South African camp on Tuesday evening but will not officially replace Markram in the squad unless he is ruled out and the ICC’s event technical committee confirms the swap. It is likely that South Africa added him to the group in the event that they qualify for a Dubai final against India, where conditions are drier and they need an extra spinner. They currently have two specialist spinners in the squad: Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi, but only Maharaj has played in Pakistan. India played four spinners in their most recent match against New Zealand in Dubai.Related

• South Africa, New Zealand gear up for run-fest as even contest beckons

In the 2025 SA20, Linde played a key role in MI Cape Town winning their maiden title. In 11 games, Linde scored 161 runs at a strike rate of 153.33 and picked up 11 wickets at an economy of 6.29. More recently, playing for Western Province in the One-Day Challenge Division One, he scored 106 runs and took four wickets in five games.Left-arm fast bowler Kwena Maphaka is also with the squad as a traveling reserve. Meanwhile, Temba Bavuma and Tony de Zorzi have recovered from illness and will train this evening.

Tensions between domestic and international cricket are only likely to increase, the international players’ association said

Nagraj Gollapudi29-Nov-2022Forty percent of the world’s top T20 men’s players are operating as free agents as they shun national contracts to move around the world plying their trade in lucrative domestic T20 leagues. Another 42% are operating in a hybrid model combining a national and domestic contract along with playing in at least one overseas T20 league.That means 82% of the top-100 T20 players don’t want to be shackled solely to a national contract, once the only route of sustenance and security for players. These are the core findings of the 2022 Men’s Global Employment Report conducted by the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA).FICA’s report was unveiled on Tuesday, its findings derived from the Global Player Survey conducted earlier this year. The responses come from 400 players across 11 countries, the majority of them international cricketers. The survey does not feature players from India and Pakistan as neither country has a players’ association that is affiliated with FICA.Related

• ILT20 CEO David White: Champions Trophy could impact our window in 2025

• Cummins opts out of IPL with eye on Australia's heavy schedule

• Full members to play more international cricket in ICC's new FTP cycle

• ICC puts onus on boards to make international calendar manageable

• FICA alert: Players desperate to board free-agency flight

This is the third edition of the FICA report, which was conducted for the first time in 2018 and then in 2020. In its inaugural survey four years ago, FICA had warned of a flight of talent from the “vertical pathway” (graduating from domestic to international cricket) to the “horizontal pathway” (dominated by overseas T20 franchise leagues).Such a threat now is a stark reality with domestic T20 leagues (including T10 tournaments) pinned across cricket’s global landscape and dominating even the international calendar. An already crowded T20 leagues roster will see the arrival from 2023 of two new competitions: the ILT20 and the SA20, both of which start in January.Such a wider choice, FICA says, is behind the “growing trend” of players moving towards the hybrid or free agent route “with 82% of the top 100 players from the T20 Player Index” now in this category. The report does point out currently most of those free agents are players from the “smaller cricketing economies” who are making use of the “volume of opportunities” on offer.”Some of the individuals playing for 3 teams or more represent a potential new category of free-agent player ‘The league specialists’ – many of whom have limited international careers, including playing very little Test cricket, with their primary focus being in the Domestic Leagues landscape,” the report said.Players are now starting to forge careers away from the national set-ups•Cricket Australia/Getty Images

Part of this band are the likes of Tim David who featured in seven T20 leagues in 2021 along with Afghanistan trio of Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb Ur Rahman each of whom played in half a dozen T20 leagues in the same year.The remaining 18%, the report pointed out, is the group of players on a more traditional employment pathway, and almost exclusively Indian players “highlighting the restraints placed” by BCCI which has barred them from featuring in overseas domestic T20 leagues. The findings also point out “40% of the top T20 players in the world” don’t have a central contract “with a top nine cricket country” (not including Zimbabwe, Ireland, Afghanistan in the 12 Full Member countries).While it admitted that “using only the T20 format as a snapshot skews the data” FICA pointed out that the shortest format was “increasingly relevant indicator as the vast majority of the best players in the world play the format.”How much is too much?To illustrate how far the landscape of international cricket has changed, FICA compared the number of ODIs/T20s across random years between 2003 and 2021. In 2003 there was no international T20 cricket, but out of 196 international matches played, 71% (152) were ODIs along with 44 Test matches. In 2021, 485 international matches were played across three formats with the break-up being: 346 T20Is (71%), 46 Tests (9%) and 93 ODIs (19%) – the vast increase in T20Is is also because of a widening of the classification in 2019 to include all such matches played between Associates.The chief catalyst behind players going solo is the lucrative remuneration on offer in these leagues, and the FICA report echoed that point. “Professional cricket is increasingly a multi-contract, multi-employer system,” the report said. “The gap between domestic earnings and international earnings has increased further since FICA’s last report and exceeds international earnings in all bar two countries.”Another major reason players, including high profile names, are redrawing their futures is the relentless international schedule which has forced a massive workload upon them. That is not going to reduce with increasing frequency of ICC tournaments in the next FTP: there are 20 global tournaments in 2024-31 FTP compared to 14 in the previous eight-year cycle (2015-23).Ben Stokes is among the leading players to have retirement from one format of the game•Getty Images

Ben Stokes sounded an alarm bell when he retired from ODIs this year. Quinton de Kock has retired from Test cricket at the age of 29. Trent Boult also gave up a central contract and decided to become a free agent, joining several other New Zealand players who have rejected a national contract.Such a trend, FICA report said, was not just limited to high profile players and would continue especially in the wake of new T20 leagues and the spread of IPL owners “horizontally” into other overseas leagues. Multiple employers and contracts would only increase the “tension” between players and their national boards, the report pointed out.”When combined with an increasingly crowded global playing schedule, and scheduling overlap between domestic leagues and international cricket, tension is created with many of the best players in the world incentivised to prioritise domestic leagues and forgo international fixtures and/or central contracts. This is further amplified by the workload of domestic leagues being generally half that of international cricket on a time / wage basis – i.e. ‘twice the pay for half the work’. Whilst this trend is not limited to ‘profile players’ some pertinent recent examples include Trent Boult rejecting a NZC central contract, Ben Stokes retiring from ODIs and Quinton de Kock retiring from Test cricket at the age of 29. This trend looks set to continue with the creation of more domestic leagues, and IPL media rights reportedly selling for over 6 billion USD for the next 5 years.”Of those who participated in the FICA survey, 49% said they would “consider rejecting a central contract if they were paid more to play in domestic leagues”, but 74% (dropping from 82% in 2018 report) still value Test cricket as the summit in the game. Seventy-nine percent wanted a threshold number for minimum and maximum number of international matches annually while 63% wanted franchises leagues “ring fenced” to have more clarity and allow domestic and international cricket to “co-exist”.Tom Moffat, the FICA CEO, said a balanced global structure was a must for the health of the game and its players and a “clear framework around bilateral international cricket scheduling” was necessary. “The majority of the value in each of the three major, revenue generating cricket landscapes, is generated through a small number of players, and those players can only be in so many places at once.”

Glover was one among a quartet of players with South African backgrounds who put in key showings to lift Netherlands to a famous win

Deivarayan Muthu06-Nov-20221:43

Glover: ‘We were just waiting for that complete performance’

There is a strong South African flavour in Netherlands’ squad. Stephan Myburgh had started his career at Northerns along with Neil Wagner; Colin Ackermann first made his name as a red-ball batter at Eastern Province; Roelof van der Merwe played for South Africa Under-19s as well as the senior team in T20 World Cups before acquiring a Dutch passport and forging a new career in Netherlands.Then there’s Brandon Glover, who was born in Johannesburg, went to St Stithians college, and also played for South Africa Under-19s. This quartet combined spectacularly to KO their country of birth at the 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup, and help Netherlands finish No. 4 in the group (as results later in the day confirmed) to qualify directly for the 2024 edition.*Related

• 'Everything happens in fast-forward – you see the whole game situation in those few seconds'

• Temba Bavuma not taking 'emotional' decisions on his future as captain

• Report: Shock defeat ends South Africa's World Cup

• South Africa get into a cage and slam the door shut on themselves

• 'We are still going to carry that monkey on our backs' – Bavuma

Myburg cracked seven fours in the powerplay and was responsible for 34 of the 48 runs Netherlands had scored in the first six overs. Ackermann provided the finishing kick, hitting an unbeaten 41 off 26 balls – 21 of which came in the last two overs of the innings. Van der Merwe, for his part, sprinted back from short fine leg and tracked down a skier, as if his life depended on it, to dismiss the dangerous David Miller for a run-a-ball 17. It is a bona fide contender for the catch of the tournament, but it was Glover who made the biggest impact on the day.Glover sussed out the conditions early – the Adelaide pitch was fairly two-paced and offering some grip – and bowled a slower legcutter third ball to hoodwink Rilee Rossouw in the tenth over. Then, when he returned to the attack for the 16th, he dug an on-pace short ball into the pitch and drew a top edge from Miller, with van der Merwe completing sensational catch. Two legal balls later, Glover hid one away from Wayne Parnell’s swinging arc and scratched his outside edge. South Africa were 113 for 6 in the 16th over in their pursuit of 159. Game over and tournament over for them.Glover had first caught the attention of Ryan Campbell, the then-head coach of Netherlands, in 2019. Netherlands were training in South Africa for the 2019 World Cup qualifiers and Campbell was so impressed with him that he convinced him to move to the Netherlands and use his Dutch passport, via his mother, to start a career there.”There is a strong South African influence in our team,” Glover said at the post-match press conference. “All with Dutch heritage obviously, but yeah we chose a different path for various reasons and it’s paying off for all of us. We are happy with it and it’s always special to play against South Africa; always nice to stand out there with them… We love South Africa and all that stuff but obviously we dedicate it to the Dutch and we’ve been working extremely hard for this team. It’s been good to see things have been paying off now.”The shift to Netherlands, in fact, immediately paid off for Glover, who emerged as the joint-highest wicket-taker in T20I cricket in 2019, with 28 strikes in 16 matches at an economy rate of 6.50. Glover, however, got just two games in the 2021 Men’s T20 World Cup in the UAE and there was no room for him in Netherlands’ XI in the early exchanges of this tournament. He finally got his chance against Pakistan on a typically bouncy Perth pitch and has since made telling contributions with the ball.Brandon Glover sent back David Miller and Wayne Parnell in the same over•Getty Images

“Obviously, I was disappointed not to play, especially in the qualifying stages,” Glover said. “But you have to back the captain and back the coach. They made the right decisions and we got there; it was all combinations and stuff. So, I was just tearing at the bit to play. I was just working hard in the nets and to finally get my chance against Pakistan, I thought: ‘Well, I’m not letting this go now and going to keep hammering away’. Fortunately, I took my opportunity and it was special for me because it shows hard work pays off. Obviously, I was raring to go the whole time. Very happy with how I’ve gone, and yeah, just nice to be back in the side.”Having felled Zimbabwe and South Africa in the Super 12s, and having challenged other oppositions throughout the tournament, Netherlands now believe that they can cut it against the top teams in international cricket.”We were just waiting for that complete performance,” Glover said. “There was always something that was missing [earlier] – the batting [or] bowling and we didn’t quite bring it together. I feel the last two performances we just came together better as a team, and we knew exactly what to do.”We’ve been working extremely hard on the background as well. I think the whole team just finally gelling and us playing our best form of cricket shows that we’re up there and we can compete with the best in the world, and we’ve done that. But incredibly happy for the team – we’ve come together really nicely. We just needed to get that complete performance, which I feel like we’ve done.”This T20 World Cup marks the end of Campbell’s stint at Netherlands, and Glover also suggested that Sunday’s match might have been Myburgh’s last for the team, but Glover’s own rise promises new beginnings for Netherlands.*

Foxes precede washed-out match by announcing Harris will return to Australia to combat travel restrictions

ECB Reporters Network05-Aug-2021On the day Leicestershire announced that overseas player Marcus Harris would not play again this season, a superb 140 from Glamorgan opener Nick Selman proved in vain as their Royal London Cup match at Leicester was abandoned with no result.The day had started with Leicestershire announcing that Australian opener Harris, who had been set to stay until the end of the Foxes’ Royal London Cup and County Championship campaigns, had been forced to return to Australia early because of concerns that coronavirus-related travel issues might affect his availability at the start of his own domestic season. Harris, 29, had impressed with four centuries across the two competitions, making 887 runs in all.Meanwhile, Selman’s career-best List A score was backed up by 67 from Billy Root as Glamorgan posted 277 for 8 in 50 overs, the pair sharing a partnership of 123 for the fourth wicket to set a competitive total after the early loss of New Zealand batter Hamish Rutherford for just a single.George Rhodes claimed career-best figures of 3 for 44 with his off-spin and held three catches and Leicestershire, after winning the toss and giving their bowlers first use of a green-tinged pitch, would have fancied themselves at least to run the group leaders close.But they were able to complete only one over of their innings before rain arrived, and though a restart with a revised target of 257 from 43 overs was proposed at one stage, more rain put paid to that and play was abandoned at around five o’clock.Selman’s runs came off 144 balls and included eight fours and a six. He almost batted through the full 50 overs but was run out off the first delivery of the final over. Root hit four fours and a six in his 60-ball contribution.Earlier, after Rutherford had been caught brilliantly by Rhodes at backward point in the second over, Selman shared a valuable partnership of 92 with Steven Reingold. They were not separated until the 20th over, when Reingold’s attempted pull against Rhodes saw him leg before.Skipper Kiran Carlson soon became a second victim for Rhodes but Root was busy from the start and he and Selman found the open spaces in the ground’s expansive outfield to keep the scoreboard moving.When they went on the attack, Root swept Arron Lilley for six and cut Gavin Griffiths for four to pass fifty from 47 balls, shortly before Selman, having gone to three figures from 120 deliveries, sent teenager Rehan Ahmed’s leg-spin clattering into the brickwork at long-on, requiring a change of ball.The last five overs added 40 runs but a cost five wickets. Root was leg before trying to paddle Rhodes, James Weighell fell to a fine catch by Ed Barnes at deep midwicket, Joe Cooke found the fielder at deep square leg and Tom Cullen top-edged to point two balls after Selman’s demise.Leicestershire’s Ben Mike was another absentee as he completed a two-match suspension imposed after he was ruled to have deliberately damaged the pitch with his spikes during a match against Northamptonshire in the Vitality Blast. The Foxes were also docked a point for the 2021 Blast season by the Cricket Disciplinary Commission, which had no effect on their sixth-placed group stage finish, outside the knockout places.The commission also handed Leicestershire a suspended points penalty on Wednesday after the club had accumulated six fixed penalties within the past year. Should the club incur another fixed penalty in the next 12 months, they will lose 12 points in the Championship, or two in the Royal London Cup or T20 Blast.

Tom Smith five-for seals visitors’ 57-run victory at Edgbaston

ECB Reporters Network02-Sep-2020Gloucestershire brushed Birmingham Bears aside by 57 runs in a truncated Central Group thrash in the Vitality Blast at Edgbaston.In a game shortened to 12 overs per side by rain, Gloucestershire piled up 157 for 3 thanks principally to Ian Cockbain’s explosive unbeaten 84 from just 35 balls, including six fours and seven sixes.A second-wicket stand of 89 in 40 balls from Cockbain and Miles Hammond, who struck 41 off 23 balls, ensured the Bears would be facing a hefty target.The mighty scoreboard pressure then told on the home side as they mustered only 100 all out in reply with left-arm spinner Tom Smith taking a career-best 5 for 16. Birmingham lost their last nine wickets for 45 runs in 42 balls.After Gloucestershire were put in, Dan Mousley, making his T20 debut, bowled Chris Dent with his fourth ball, but Hammond and Cockbain hit freely. They took their side to 42 from four overs and then smashed 22 from the fifth as Cockbain welcomed Tim Bresnan into the attack with a four followed by three successive sixes, over mid wicket, long off and extra cover.Two more successive sixes, flat-batted over long off, then hoisted over cover, off Olly Stone, took the former Lancashire player to 50 from 19 balls.Hammond’s impressive support role ended when he lifted Henry Brookes to point but Gloucestershire’s momentum remained high, with only two of the 12 overs costing fewer than ten runs. Cockbain charged on, chanced his arm, usually connecting sweetly and earning the luck that saw one or two edges speed away to the boundary.Birmingham omitted Ian Bell from the side to make room for a hitter in the shortened contest, but they took just three runs from the first over from Graeme van Buuren.Ed Pollock got the Bears going with two sixes in the next over from David Payne but perished in the next when he missed an attempted big hit at van Buuren and was bowled.Adam Hose and Sam Hain took the Bears to a reasonably promising 55 for 1 but the innings was then sent into freefall by three wickets in an over. Smith had Hose stumped and Hain superbly caught at long on by a diving Cockbain, then Will Rhodes was run out after responding to a misjudged call for a single by Michael Burgess.Burgess was bowled by Ryan Higgins in the next over and then Smith ended Mousley’s debut knock at just three in five balls. The 33-year-old had his third five-for in T20 cricket after Bresnan and Stone sent up catces. That was 83 for 8 and by now the Bears were flailing wildly in the wilderness while Gloucestershire were home and hosed.The day’s other three fixtures; Lancashire v Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire v Durham and Yorkshire v Leicestershire, were all abandoned due to bad weather without a ball being bowled.

A round-up of the Vijay Hazare Trophy Group A matches played on December 17, 2015

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Dec-2015Ajinkya Rahane’s century ended in vain as Rajasthan gunned down 302 against Mumbai with Rajat Bhatia’s unbeaten 94 at the Gymkhana Ground in Hyderabad.Rajasthan lost opener Manender Singh early in the chase but Dishant Yagnik and Puneet Yadav pitched in with forties each to keep the scorecard ticking. Abhishek Nayar got rid of both, but Ashok Menaria and Bhatia took charge with a 145-run partnership, which tilted the balance in Rajasthan’s favour. Bhatia drilled eight fours and three sixes and remained unbeaten on 94 off 71 balls.Having opted to bowl, Rajasthan struck early, courtesy Pankaj Singh who got rid of Mumbai’s top three. Aditya Tare then exited for a duck as Mumbai were left reeling at 44 for 4 within 12 overs. Rahane, however, combined well with Surya Kumar Yadav in a 125-run stand. By the time Rahane was out, Mumbai had reached 270, and they eventually crossed 300. Bhatia and Menaria then fired and kept their team in the race for the knockouts.B Aparajith’s fifty and a string of 20-plus scores trumped Tanmay Agarwal’s second List A century as Tamil Nadu took a step closer to the knockouts. They chased down 231 in 47.5 overs to take their fourth win of the tournament, against Hyderabad.Abhinav Mukund and Dinesh Karthik gave their side a solid base in the chase, adding 57 together. However, seamer Mohammed Siraj, playing his maiden List A match, produced a double-strike to remove the openers. M Vijay and Vijay Shankar propped up Tamil Nadu before R Ashwin and Aparajith dropped anchor. The pair put on 86 before Ravi Kiran had Aparajith caught behind for 55. Three balls later, the seamer had R Satish bowled for a duck. Ashwin was dismissed for 36 in the next over, but B Indrajith and Aswin Crist guided Tamil Nadu home with three wickets and 13 balls to spare.Earlier, Agarwal led Hyderabad’s recovery, striking 11 fours and 1 six during his 96-ball 105. Opener Danny Derek Prince got the next-best score – 31 off 41 balls. Tamil Nadu chipped away at the wickets, L Balaji, who was playing his first game of the season, the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3 for 33. He was complemented by Satish, Ashwin, and Shankar who grabbed two wickets each. This meant that Hyderabad were dismissed for 230 in 49.2 overs, a total that proved inadequate in the end.A trio of fifties marshalled Services‘ chase of 262 as Assam sunk to their sixth loss in six matches. Opener Soumik Chatterjee gave the early impetus with Amit Pachhara before Rajat Paliwal built on the platform as Services sealed the deal in 45.2 overs in Secunderabad.Having opted to bat, Assam were reduced to 28 for 2 in 7.4 overs by Diwesh Pathania. Sibsankar Roy and Amit Verma lifted their side with a 100-run partnership, but Pathania came back and sliced through the lower order, as Assam were restricted to 261. Pathania finished with career-best List A figures of 5 for 54.

A big hundred from James Taylor was a perfect return to form for Notts as they seek to dampen relegation fears, but it is unlikely to quicken England’s interest after a lean season

ECB/PA19-Jul-2015
ScorecardJames Taylor’s return to form might have come too late to interest England•Getty Images

James Taylor scored his first LV County Championship hundred of the season as Nottinghamshire eventually dominated an absorbing first day against Sussex at Horsham.The 25-year-old has had a modest season by his standards but he clearly enjoys facing the Sussex attack. His unbeaten 163 was his third score of over 150 against them, following 163 in 2012 and 204 in 2013, and helped his side reach 358 for 5 at stumps.There were two periods in the game when Sussex had control. Ollie Robinson, who finished the day with four wickets, helped reduce Notts to 30 for 3 before returning in the afternoon to claim Rikki Wessels (94) and Samit Patel in successive overs.That left Notts 186 for 5 but Taylor and his captain, Chris Read, wrested the initiative for their side after tea by extending their sixth wicket stand to 174.While Wessels deserved credit for his aggressive counter-attack it was the understated but effective way with which Taylor went about his business which most impressed.His first 50 runs took 119 balls but he went to his hundred from 71 more before accelerating once he had reached the milestone with some eye-catching shots, particularly through the off side.By stumps he had faced 247 balls and hit 23 fours, having batted for five hours 40 minutes so far. It was his tenth score of over 150.It is three years since Taylor played the last of his two Tests and he lost his England one-day place for the recent series against New Zealand. But as the inquest into England’s hammering in the second Test begins, the 25-year-old will be hoping that this innings can be the start of a productive end to the season.Nottinghamshire certainly needed him to be at his phlegmatic best after their top order had been wrecked by Robinson and Matt Hobden.Robinson made the breakthrough in the sixth over, removing Alex Hales courtesy of a juggling catch at second slip by Chris Nash. Hobden had Brendan Taylor lbw working to leg with his fourth ball before Robinson picked up Steven Mullaney with a ball which seamed just enough to take the edge.On a quick-scoring ground Wessels was soon into his stride, taking just 48 balls over his 50 which included a six over mid-wicket off Peter Burgoyne.After lunch Wessels and Taylor extended their fourth-wicket stand to 144 from 38 overs before Robinson made his double strike.Wessels chipped a catch to Luke Wells at mid on, having hit 13 fours and a six from 199 balls faced, before Patel was held in his follow through by Robinson.Steve Magoffin bowled without luck and Luke Wells was unfortunate to have Read dropped at slip on 35 by Ed Joyce, but otherwise Taylor and Read made unflustered progress in the evening session, even after Sussex took the new ball. Read reached his 50 with a boundary past the diving Luke Wright at third slip just before stumps.A dry pitch is expected to turn by the fourth day and Notts have recalled 40-year-old slow left-armer Gary Keedy for his first Championship appearance of the season.

New Zealand succumbed for 185 as their batsmen continue to make the same mistakes and get out in the same fashion

Firdose Moonda in Hamilton15-Mar-2012Children have a certain look on their faces when they’ve been thoroughly scolded. It’s a hangdog expression that is a mixture of embarrassment and anger. Brendon McCullum wore it when he walked into the end of day press conference.It turned out that McCullum had a reason to look so sheepish. He and the rest of the New Zealand side had been given a stern talking to from John Wright. So much so, that McCullum didn’t seem to have recovered enough to articulate it very well. “Quite rightly he [Wright] was very upset and he wasn’t backward in coming forward on that, which was fair enough.”Whatever direction Wright was in, it was a better one than his batting line-up and he let them know it. “He said that we made some dumb mistakes and we continue to make dumb mistakes and that’s going to put us under pressure against a good team,” McCullum said. “If we’re not going to learn from those mistakes then we’re going to continue to have days like this. He was pretty straight up with that message.”New Zealand had themselves to blame for three of the first four wickets to fall – the last two at the top end of the eventual collapse. While Rob Nicol was the victim of a fairly good ball that lifted on him, Martin Guptill hung his bat out to a delivery he should have left, Brendon McCullum took the bait and pulled one straight to the square leg fielder who had been placed there just for him. And Ross Taylor played at a ball he could have left.McCullum and Taylor’s dismissals’ were particularly disappointing because they had steered New Zealand to a position which made South Africa’s decision to bowl first seem questionable. “We made two very dumb errors from our two senior batsmen and that put the rest of our line-up under pressure,” McCullum said. “If you give South Africa a sniff then they go up a gear and that’s what they did. It was pretty frustrating.”Even for an attack that is considered the among world’s best, five wickets without conceding a run is a dreamlike effort and McCullum admitted it was a nighmare for New Zealand to witness. He avoided the real-time show but could not escape its consequences. “I saw the first couple [of wickets] after I got out and tried to take a shower to hope that things would work out okay,” McCullum said. “We frittered away a great opportunity to make big runs against a very good team and I’m devastated by that. You can’t walk away from that, you have to own up and make sure you do it better next time.”Accountability is something that McCullum understands. He has scored four half-centuries in the tour against South Africa so far but has failed to converted even one into a three-figure score. “Fifties and sixties aren’t going to get the required runs for us so I have to be able to turn those starts into big scores,” he said. “It’s frustrating but I have to make sure I stand tall and continue to try to lead the batting line-up.”Part of that leadership is balancing aggression with defense, something New Zealand’s batsmen are struggling to do on fairly tame surfaces. Although the Hamilton strip was tinged with green, it was by no means a pitch worthy of a score of under 200 in the first innings. “For a new batter it is testing but if you get the pace of it and get yourself in you can occupy the crease without too many demons,” McCullum said.That bodes for a tough day ahead for New Zealand as South Africa will look to make the most of the best batting conditions on the second and third days. Chris Martin picked up two wickets but there is still a massive amount of toil ahead. “We’re still incredibly disappointed with our day but to take two wickets at the end, albeit a night watchman, gives us a little bit more leeway into their middle order,” McCullum said. “Tomorrow morning is going to be huge, we’ve got to try and attack early on and knock over a couple of early, and if we can’t do that then hold the run rate then if we can get a breakthrough go hard again to try and take wickets in clumps.”Edited by Tariq Engineer