There haven’t been many Test bowlers taking a wicket with their first ball at the highest level, but the last two have been Proteas.

Hardus Viljoen’s rather fortunate capture of Alastair Cook, edged behind while following a ball down the leg side in this third Test at the Wanderers follows the more sedate effort by Dane Piedt, who dismissed Zimbabwe’s Mark Vermeulen in 2014 in Harare.

Even more rare, is that Viljoen is only the second player in Test history to take a wicket with his first ball AND hit his first ball for four. The only other was Matthew Henderson, of New Zealand, in 1930

Only 20 belong to the exclusive first-ball club. the oldest being Tom Horan, of Australia, back in 1882-83. The first South African was ‘Bert’ Vogler, in a match against England in 1906, taking the catch himself. And Vogler was to fall victim to another first-baller, Jack Crawford, in the same match.

Bowler                                         Batsman

TP Horan (Aus)	WW Read	Aus v Eng	Sydney	1882-83
A Coningham (Aus)	AC MacLaren	Aus v Eng	Melbourne	1894-95
WM Bradley (Eng)	F Laver	Eng v Aus	Manchester	1899
EG Arnold (Eng)	VT Trumper	Eng v Aus	Sydney	1903-04
AEE Vogler (SA)	EG Hayes	SA v Eng	Johannesburg	1905-06
JN Crawford (Eng)	AEE Vogler	Eng v SA	Johannesburg	1905-06
GG Macaulay (Eng)	GAL Hearne	Eng v SA	Cape Town	1922-23
MW Tate (Eng)	MJ Susskind	Eng v SA	Birmingham	1924
M Henderson (NZ)	EW Dawson	NZ v Eng	Christchurch	1929-30
HD Smith (NZ)	E Paynter	NZ v Eng	Christchurch	1932-33
TF Johnson (WI)	WW Keeton	WI v Eng	The Oval	1939
R Howorth (Eng)	DV Dyer	Eng v SA	The Oval	1947
Intikhab Alam (Pak)	CC McDonald	Pak v Aus	Karachi	1959-60
RK Illingworth (Eng)	PV Simmons	Eng v WI	Nottingham	1991
NM Kulkarni (Ind)	MS Atapattu	Ind v SL	Colombo	1997
MKGCP Lakshitha (SL)	Mohammad Ashraful	SL v Ban	Colombo	2002
NM Lyon (Aus)	KC Sangakkara	Aus v SL	Galle	2011
RMS Eranga (SL)	SR Watson	SL v Aus	Colombo (SSC)	2011
DL Piedt (SA)	MA Vermeulen	SA v Zim	Harare	2014