Cape Town - Proteas
bowler, Vernon Philander, says the rest of the attack will be
‘motivated to deliver’
in Dale Steyn’s absence after the fast bowler was ruled out of the
current Test match against Australia at the WACA ground in Perth due to a
right shoulder injury.
For now, the focus remains on the batsmen who
are building on a second innings lead, which stands
at 102 with eight wickets in hand, but when the opportunity arises
Philander says every bowler will be eager to step up to the challenge.
“Dale
has been a leader of this attack for a very long time, it’s sad to see
him go down like that,” Philander
said at stumps on Friday. “We had a job at hand, which was to get the
Aussies out as cheaply as possible, I think it was a job well done by
the rest of the bowlers.
“It’s always going to be the case that you have to dish up a few more overs,” he said of the extra pressure.
“It’s a responsibility well taken by the rest of the team and the squad, we will want to win the game for Dale.
“It’s
about trying to find the best combinations when we are bowling in the
second innings. There is a lot
of responsibility on myself and KG (Rabada) but we are looking forward
to the challenge. Hopefully we can skittle them out again.”
Philander
says the unit had an honest feedback session following last night’s
poor execution, which showed
in their determined performance to restrict Australia to their biggest
batting collapse in Australia, 10 wickets for 86 runs.
Philander
finished with figures of 4/56, redemption after picking up the wicket of
David Warner off a no-ball in Thursday’s final session.
“I
knew it was not one of the best things to take a wicket off a no-ball,”
he admitted. “If you take responsibility
you can go out and correct your mistakes, that really motivated me to
turn it up. As a bowling unit we went back and chatted
about the lengths that we bowled. We wanted to try and execute a lot
better.
“Personally, I think we were a little bit short last night,” he said. “We needed to find that length that
was going to work for us on this wicket. I think the execution today was a lot better.”
Dean Elgar (46 not out) and JP Duminy (34 not out) will lead the counter-attack on day three with the score
on 104/2.
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