India wicket will do Steyn 'world of good'

Cape Town, January 6: South Africa batting coach Dale Benkenstein believes Dale Steyn's wicket on the first day of the opening Test with India will do him "the world of good".

Steyn made his first Test appearance since November 2016 at Newlands on Friday, his sparkling career having been interrupted by a shoulder injury.

After South Africa had slumped to a disappointing 286 all out in their first innings, Steyn marked his return with a wicket, removing Shikhar Dhawan caught and bowled for 16 as India fell to 28-3 in reply, also losing captain Virat Kohli (5) and Murali Vijay (1).

The right-arm quick is now just three behind South Africa's all-time leading wicket taker Shaun Pollock, who recorded 421 Test dismissals.

And Benkenstein heaped praise on the 34-year-old, saying: "That one wicket will do the world of good for him.

"I think he bowled beautifully. His pace was up there with what he normally bowls with the new ball.

"To get him into the series straight away, from a mental point of view, that was a massive four overs that he bowled. It'll be a massive benefit for us.

"He hasn't bowled for so long so every time he bowled there was a little niggle here and there and then you lose a bit of confidence.

"As a bowler he's not exactly in the youth of his career. These last three or four days, he's been outstanding and from what you've seen out there, he's nearly back to his best.

"He is a huge weapon for South African cricket."

Meanwhile, India seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who took 4-87, was disappointed that the tourists allowed South Africa to creep up towards 300.

"If we want to be hard on ourselves, then yes we did give away a few too many runs to South Africa," Bhuvneshwar said.

"I think they scored 25-30 odd extra runs. In every hour of play, there were two-three overs where we gave them easy boundaries in one over. That is an area we can improve on.

"It [high run-rate] is something of a concern for us. During the breaks also we were talking about bringing the run-rate down because in Test cricket four runs per over is huge.

"This is something we want to improve in the next innings, but overall we are happy with the lines and lengths we bowled."

Source: OPTA