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South Africa captain Temba Bavuma was left to lament Trinidad's inclement weather as his team finished five wickets short of victory during the first Test against the West Indies.
The teams lost play to rain on all five days of the Port of Spain Test, with a total of 142 overs lost overall across the match as both South Africa and the West Indies missed an excellent opportunity to rise the ICC World Test Championship standings. The match finished as a draw under fading light at Queen's Park Oval on Sunday, with the West Indies finishing 97 runs short of an unlikely win and South Africa failing to take the final five wickets that would have delivered 12 World Test Championship points to the victor. The draw was the first in men's Test cricket in more than 12 months and sees South Africa remain in seventh place on the World Test Championship standings with a 26.67 win-loss percentage and the West Indies stay in ninth at 20.83 per cent. South Africa had tried their best to force a positive result by declaring at 173/3 prior to lunch on the final day, but yet another rain delay and dogged innings of 92 from Alick Athanaze foiled any hopes the Proteas had of clinching the victory. "We tried our best to get a result in our favour. But the wicket didn't break up as much as we expected. In the end, it was a good, competitive game of cricket. We went in with an extra batter as a cushion. As batters, we will like to be a bit more ruthless and convert those fifties into hundreds.," Bavuma said as quoted by ICC. "We lost time because of the weather. With the bowling resources we had, we tried our best. Keshav and Kagiso (Rabada) supported by others, a little more time and things could have been different," the right-hand batter added. West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite took plenty of positives from the performance of his side, especially with the efforts of some of his batters. All of the West Indies' top three got starts in the first innings and Athanaze impressed in the second innings as he went agonisingly close to recording his maiden Test century. "I am happy with our batting group. The guys are quite positive, I am proud of the batting unit. We believed we could get those runs. It wasn't going to be easy, We need to keep going from strength to strength. The pitches are a bit slower in the Caribbean. For me, it's about adjusting when to go slow and when to accelerate," Brathwaite said. "It's all about belief and planning and bat as per the plan. Alick showed us that today. Hodge was good in England. His plan was the sweep and he struck to it, even though he got out to a sweep," the 31-year-old added. The second and final Test commences in Guyana on Thursday. (ANI)
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