Proteas bowler, Vernon Philander, says the rest of the bowling attack will be ‘motivated to deliver’ in Dale Steyn’s absence.
Steyn picked up a shoulder injury and will undergo surgery which will rule him out for the rest of the series as well as an estimated recovery period of up to six months.
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 today. As a bowling unit we went back last night and chatted about the lengths that we bowled. We wanted to try and execute a lot better today.
‘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.
