Cricket: Bond woes emphasise attack's resilience

Shane Bond

CENTURION - It wouldn't be a complete surprise to learn that Shane Bond's minders have relieved him of his shoe-laces and are now arranging to transfer him into a well-padded ground-floor room, equipped with plastic cutlery and calming music.

The sidelined New Zealand fast-bowler had an MRI scan on his troublesome right knee at the weekend, and - although the assessment cleared of him anything more than inflamed tendons - his availability for the second test against South Africa remains in doubt.

Team manager Lindsay Crocker said yesterday it was impossible to know how long it would take for Bond to recover from the knee complaint, which was first detected during the opening test of the West Indies series, and then aggravated in last week's tour match at Benoni.

However, he said the side had been encouraged that the scan showed nothing more serious than what was initially diagnosed, and hoped the complaint would clear up as soon as possible so Bond could return to the fray.

Since his debut in 2001 Bond has played 10 tests but, for one reason or another, has missed an astonishing 24, including a year off while some of his vertebrae were reinforced with bone grafts and titanium wire.

Not only has he often been under an injury cloud, he's also proved susceptible to virus and heat-stroke, and - on the first morning of the second test against the West Indies - had to withdraw with a stomach ailment.

The only consolation from his latest setback was that it presented back-up paceman Kyle Mills with another chance to push his case at the weekend, and again underlined the resilient nature of what was supposed to be a weakened New Zealand attack.

Mills, who claimed career best figures when he stepped in for Bond this year at Wellington, found himself in a similar situation on the first day of the opening test at Centurion, his four for 43 again highlighting his versatility.

That sterling service, combined with some smash and grab raids from left-armer James Franklin, helped New Zealand to dismiss South Africa on the second morning for 276, an impressive outcome considering the hosts had gone to lunch on the first day at 85 for one.

Mills said afterwards that the feeling in the New Zealand dressing room was that the Centurion pitch, which proved particularly two-paced at the Hennops River end, would only make batting more difficult as the game wore on, placing particular importance on each team's first innings.

"We were pretty happy with how it turned out, considering we lost the toss and were forced to bowl first," he said.

"But come day three, four and five I think it'll be a pretty difficult wicket to bat on, so the first innings will be very important to each team.

"I think it's going to get harder as the game wears on."

Mills believes the key to the test lies in the discipline of the bowling, in the need to recognise the difficulties associated with run-scoring, and the subsequent pressure that can be applied in terms of denial.

He reckoned that, on a pitch expected to get more uneven with time, it was important for the bowlers to be patient and to work in conjunction with each other, so that the batting team would be forced to search for runs.

"We probably bowled too many four balls [on the first day]; but we didn't get wickets in clumps, we had to work hard for every individual success - and I think the whole bowling unit did well.

"The wickets will come through patience. Most of their batsmen played themselves in and we had to work for our wickets.

"But we felt if we stuck to our guns the wickets would come, and that's likely to apply throughout the test."

His views were largely shared by South African batsman Boeta Dippenaar, who had a reasonable look at the pitch while scoring 52, and later expressed a view that batting would only become more difficult as the pitch dried out and the bounce became more inconsistent.

"That's why we decided to bat first - it was a matter of biting the bullet straight away, rather than in the last innings," said Dippenaar.

"We weren't completely surprised that it did a lot but we would have much preferred to have kicked on to something like 330 or 340. I think that would have been a par score on this wicket.

"We'd prefer to be a couple of less wickets down, and closer to 300 at stumps, but we feel that both teams are going to find the going tough, be it in the first or last innings."