Wianan Mulder admits South Africa made it a little too easy for Matt Renshaw at the crease in Durban and need to be smarter about their strategy going forward.
Renshaw joined an elite club on Saturday after his epic display with the bat saw him become one of five Australian left-handers to score a ton at Kingsmead.
Phil Hughes, Simon Katich, Matthew Hayden and Neil Harvey have all reached three figures at the ground. Renshaw went on to belt an innings-saving 190.
Renshaw faced the first ball of the over 13 consecutive times at one stage to protect Nathan Lyon from the heat strike.
Mulder was not afraid to call out his team’s poor handling of that situation.
“It just seemed like he got off strike so easily when he wanted to,” he said.
“His approach was so different from the first four balls to the last two balls (of an over), which made it difficult to keep him on strike. But maybe that’s where we could have been smarter with the field.
Mulder continued: “Sometimes it felt a bit easy for me … Maybe that’s something to think about, especially as the game progresses.
“If a batter is in and he’s batting with a tail maybe we should make it a little bit harder for him to get off strike.”
South Africa’s Wiaan Mulder fields off his own bowling. AP Photo/Themba Hadebe