In the second Test match against Zimbabwe, when South African player Wian Mulder was not out after scoring 367 runs, the interim captain of the South African team announced that he would declare. He took this decision because the South African team had scored 626 runs at that time. However, if he had scored 34 more runs, he would have surpassed Brian Lara's magnificent Test record of 400 runs. However, the decision not to play towards that target has sparked debate. Following this, many people are pointing out the incident many years ago when rahul dravid was the captain of the indian Test team, when he declared before sachin tendulkar scored a double century. Fans are criticizing that the same bad incident that happened to Sachin that day happened to Wiaan Mulder.
Wiaan Mulder is the captain of the South African team in this match, so how can this be a decision taken by someone else? Mulder is only acting as a temporary captain. The captain of the South African Test team is Temba Bavuma. He has been rested for the zimbabwe Test series. Therefore, Keshav Maharaj acted as the captain of the South African Test team in the first match of this series. In the second match, when Keshav Maharaj did not play, Wiaan Mulder was appointed as the captain of the team. Usually, the interim captains only make decisions on the field. Otherwise, the team management, including the coach, makes important decisions for the team. In that case, it is said that the decision to declare in this match may have been taken by those in the dressing room. Because this decision was taken only when Wian Mulder went to the dressing room for a lunch break. When the lunch break was over again, the South African team announced that they would declare. Therefore, there must have been some discussion about this in the dressing room at that time. Fans are putting forward the argument that Wian Mulder may have been persuaded to declare at that time.

Earlier, in the 2004 Test match against pakistan in Multan, when sachin tendulkar was batting on 194, rahul dravid declared. It became a huge controversy among indian fans at that time. There was criticism at that time that he had prevented sachin tendulkar from scoring a double century. Similarly, now, even though Wian Mulder had the opportunity to break the score of 400 runs, which is considered the greatest honor in Test cricket, he declared without doing so.

Although 626 runs against zimbabwe is a lot, the South African team had scored that score in just 114 overs. Moreover, the South African team declared that the second day could even be played. He would have had a maximum of 10 overs to score 34 runs. This is what the fans are pointing out. Wian Mulder scored 367 runs off 334 balls, hitting 49 fours and four sixes. His strike rate was 109.88. In this match, Pittingham scored 82 runs and Duane de Pretorius scored 78 runs. It is noteworthy that no other South African player scored a century.
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Sowmiya Sriram

08/07/2025 09:15 AM