Poor batting or a nasty pitch? Proteas and Windies blame latter for post-tea implosions

Bad batting or a treacherous pitch?

It's the pertinent question on most lips following the second day of the first Test between the Proteas and West Indies, where the post-tea session once again saw the batting teams collapse in a heap.

South Africa lost seven wickets in the last session of the opening day while the visitors, almost eerily, lost the same number 24 hours later.

To compound matters, Dean Elgar's ill-advised ramp shot off Alzarri Joseph to third man - a carbon copy of his first innings dismissal - sent flutters of anxiety into the Proteas camp, who ended on a wobbly 49/4 that translates into a useful if hardly insurmountable lead of 179.

Is it a case of two Test-starved, underperforming teams simply not possessing the nous to fill their boots?

Not if you ask Anrich Nortje and Jason Holder.  

READ | Anrich the Ace blitzes the Windies with 5-star bowling, but Proteas' brittle bats come tumbling down

"It's just the general thing at SuperSport Park," said the former, who had a small crowd in raptures with a fourth Test five-for. 

"It tends to happen that wickets fall late in the day. Maybe it's the sun, things happening more in the wicket. But it's definitely happening regularly.

"I don't really have an explanation. You see the ball is misbehaving now and then. That could contribute to the struggles."

Whether it absolves them or not, it's true that Temba Bavuma - who became the fourth player in history to score a pair on his Test captaincy debut - was undone by a beauty from Joseph that climbed before Holder grabbed his 150th Test victim by trapping Keegan Petersen in front with a delivery that kept low. 

That certainly does suggest variable bounce.

Holder, who joins the legendary Sir Garfield Sobers in scoring 2500 runs