Quarantine not to blame for slow starts to Test series, says Proteas' Duanne Olivier

Cape Town - The Proteas' notorious slow starts to Test series could prove to be their Achilles Heel in New Zealand after another chastening opening day in Christchurch on Thursday.

Mark Boucher's team slumped to the Proteas' lowest score in 90 year batting first with Matt Henry's 7/23 routing the visitors for just 95 in 50.2 overs.

This disastrous effort followed a similar poor beginning to the Indian home series earlier this year. The blame lay with the bowlers on that occasion at SuperSport Park, where they struggled to find a consistent line or length.

It allowed the Indian batters to get away on what should have been a tricky surface with KL Rahul's century pushing the visitors to a commanding 272/3 that formed the platform for Virat Kohli’s team to take a 1-0 series lead.

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Lack of match practice and game time were the reasons provided then, and South Africa's bowlers duly improved the longer the series wore on with the Proteas fighting back to win 2-1.

However, the New Zealand series is just two matches short and South Africa are already trailing by 21 runs on the first innings with seven Black Caps wickets still intact, SA will now face an almighty struggle to claw their way back into the contest at Hagley Oval. Four dropped catches in the afternoon certainly did not help their cause either.

The elongated time spent in Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) under the New Zealand government's Covid-19 regulations during the build-up could possibly have played a role in the batters' failure to adapt to the conditions.