One of the "many ways in cricket to ruin your day," happened to David Bedingham on the first day of the second Test in Hamilton.
He had spent just over two-and-a-half hours at the crease, saw off Neil Wagner's bouncers, survived Tim Southee's swing and Will O'Rourke's pace and had just found some rhythm against Rachin Ravindra. In the particular over we're examining, Bedingham stayed deep in his crease to carve Ravindra to deep third and pull him over midwicket for back-to-back boundaries. Ravindra adjusted his length fuller for the next few balls and eventually reached a near-yorker length. Bedingham moved across to flick, it wasn't immediately clear what made contact with the ball as it looped to Will Young at short leg, who collected and fired it back to Tom Blundell, who removed the bails as Bedingham made his ground. There was an appeal for … something.
"I saw when they appealed they were taking it as a bit of a joke and then they asked me what I thought, and I thought, 'I am not exactly sure'," Bedingham said at the press conference.
But he had some idea of what had happened. "It felt like it came straight off my boot."
Replays showed Bedingham had played the ball onto his shoe, from where it popped up to Young, without touching the ground. And that meant his patient performance, and a fourth-wicket partnership of 36 with Zubayr Hamza, came to an end with only 39 runs to Bedingham's name. "These things happen in cricket. It's a weird way to get out and a disappointing way to get out," he said. "There's so many ways in cricket to ruin your day and that's one of them."
South Africa were 99 for 4 at one point and 101 for 5 two overs later, and their decision to bat first looked less brave than stupid. If not for a half-century from Ruan de Swardt, whose 70-run sixth-wicket unbeaten stand with debutant Shaun von Berg means the game "hangs in the balance," as Ravindra put it, many more South Africans' days would have been ruined. As things stand, South Africa are fighting. Wounded, but still fighting and New Zealand expect nothing less.
"It's a testament to the character of them, not just as a cricket team but as a nation," Ravindra said. "They are very, very proud sporting people and it shows that they are not just going to die and roll over. They are going to still come out and deny us and potentially put pressure back onto us for a period of time."
Read the last sentence with a 2020s cricketing lens and you may think South Africa are scoring quickly or bombastically. They're not. They're going at 2.47 runs to the over and have run as many singles - 33 - as they have hit fours. There is a sense that they're about survival first, as Raynard van Tonder's 71-ball 32 and Hamza's 99-ball 20 suggest and so, there is no great urgency to what they're doing.
That's understandable given the combination of conditions and quality of attack. Now the next step is to know what to do when it all gets too much. Eventually, van Tonder could not keep a Wagner short ball down and Hamza fell to a top-edge off a rash slog sweep. Both of those are shots of frustration, which could have been minimised with more regular strike rotation and more experience at this level. At least, South Africa have identified the issue.
"We were disappointed to lose six wickets because I thought we batted quite well the whole day. But when you create pressure, false shots happen and New Zealand did that really well," Bedingham said.
Still, South Africa can be fairly satisfied with their showing after making the rare choice to bat first in New Zealand. Only five teams who have won the toss in the last 51 Tests, dating back to 2012, have asked New Zealand to bowl at them first and South Africa have been that team on four occasions. They are yet to lose a game going that route.
This time the decision was based less on history and more on resources. South Africa left out a quick, Duanne Olivier, and a batter, Edward Moore, in favour of two spinners: Dane Piedt and von Berg. "Our team make-up means - we've picked two spinners - we were keen to bat big and then take the game quite deep and hopefully our spinners can come into it," Bedingham said.
And they believe that's a possibility because although there is a lot of green grass on the surface on day one, it could burn off quickly and create an opportunity for spinners to pose a threat. Already, Ravindra is the most successful of the New Zealand attack, who went seamer-heavy for this match, but used him as much as they did Southee.
His success came from discipline and a hint of turn, as could be seen in the way he dismissed Keegan Petersen, who edged a good length ball to slip "I can count on my hand how many loose balls he bowled," Bedingham said of Ravindra. "He had good control on the ball, it was drifting nicely and the occasional ball was turning and bouncing."
But at least one of his wickets - Bedingham's - was the result of nothing more than good fortune, which ruined one person's day but made a few others'. "I wouldn't call it magic. I would call it more luck," Ravindra said. "It drifted a little bit but it was pretty unlucky for Bedders. It's probably a once-in-a-lifetime way to get out. That's cricket sometimes."