Jamieson, Santner fires New Zealand to big 281 run win over South Africa in 1st test

 

New Zealand has taken a 1-0 lead in the series by defeating South Africa in the first test.  The result of the test match came out on the 5th day.  New Zealand had set a mountain-like target of 529 runs for South Africa, which the South African team failed to overcome.  South Africa could not even score 250 runs in its second innings against host New Zealand and lost the match by a huge margin.

 With this defeat of South Africa, New Zealand not only gained the lead in the series but also wrote the script of its second biggest win.  Although the entire team played a role in writing the script of the second biggest Test win for New Zealand, but Kane Williamson, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner and Kyle Jamieson had a big contribution.

 

  New Zealand defeated South Africa by 281 runs in the first Test match, which is the second biggest victory of its men's team in terms of difference of runs in Test cricket.  The biggest Test win of the New Zealand men's team has been 423 runs, which it achieved 6 years ago in 2018.

 In the match, New Zealand, playing first, scored 511 runs in the first innings thanks to Kane Williamson's century and Rachin Ravindra's 240-run innings.  In reply, the South African team was all out for 162 runs in the first innings.  New Zealand declared the second innings at 179 runs for 4 wickets and gave South Africa a target of 529 runs.  But, against this big target, South Africa could score only 247 runs in the second innings.  In this way the tourists remained 281 runs away from the victory figure.

South Africa began their 2nd innings poorly with both openers dismissed with only 5 on the board with Southee and Henry making inroads  . There was some resistance from Tonder (31) and Hamza (36) but the tall Jamieson broke the stand by getting both the players dismissed . Keegan Petersen (16) got out to the pull shot off Jamieson . Bedingham played a fine fighting knock with impressive strokeplay but he was cut short by 13 runs from a 100 when a Jameison short ball accounted for him as his pull shot was caught . The lower order fell apart  with only Swardt remaining 34 notout . For the Kiwis Jamieson took 4 wickets while Santner took 3 wickets 

 

 For New Zealand, Kane Williamson scored centuries in both the innings (118 runs, 109 runs).  Rachin Ravindra scored the first double century of his career in the first innings.  Whereas Kyle Jamieson and Mitchell Santner took 6 wickets in the match in both the innings combined.  Rachin Ravindra, who scored a double century in the first innings and took 2 wickets with the ball, was chosen as the player of the match.  The second test of the series will be played in Hamilton from 13 February.