South Africa’s purring pace attack devour rattled hosts
Only Pope stands tall as Nortje and Co make most of helpful conditions
IT WAS not Bazball that did for England yesterday, nothing to do with Ben stokes’ desire for his side to smash every ball out of Lord’s. It was simply world- class seam and swing bowling from south africa in the most helpful of conditions.
It is certainly difficult to envisage England doing any better on the return of test cricket after a sixweek break had they adopted more traditional methods and just tried to keep every ball out.
Instead, they attempted to be as positive as possible after batting first for the first time in the stokes-Brendon McCullum era, but were left clinging to the ropes by the time torrential rain ended the day half an hour after lunch.
Only alex Lees could be said to have got out to a bad shot, driving loosely at the fit-again Kagiso Rabada, and Jonny Bairstow’s golden patch was ended by the return of an old weakness, having his middle stump taken out by a full ball from anrich Nortje.
Otherwise this was a case of the potent attack that has taken south africa to the top of the world test Championship table making full use of the prodigious movement available under the sort of leaden skies not seen in England in weeks.
At least Ollie Pope again justified his promotion to the heady heights of No 3 with his third score of 50-plus this summer in making an unbeaten 61 out of England’s 116 for six. He will need to make many more today if they are to escape with their perfect record under stokes and McCullum intact.
This was a good toss to win for south african captain Dean Elgar, whose decision to bowl had nothing to do with denying England their best chance of chasing a target for the fifth successive time in five tests.
It was instead more a case of looking up at the clouds and feeling the humidity rather than down at what was essentially a true Lord’s pitch and Elgar, unbeaten in four series as south africa captain, knew he had weapons at his disposal to cause England serious problems.
How they proved it, south africa’s fourpronged pace attack showing this threetest series will be a very different kettle of fish for England than the challenge provided by New Zealand and India.
None more so than Nortje, who took three of the six wickets to fall, regularly bowled in excess of 90mph and took out England’s captain with perhaps the best ball of the day on the stroke of lunch.
All eyes were on stokes when he emerged at 55 for four to see if he would still bat in the extreme, perhaps reckless, way in which he has tried to set an example at the start of his reign. and he did not disappoint when he ran down the wicket second ball and missed a Nortje delivery timed at 93mph.
Stokes tried the same thing against the giant Marco Jansen on one and missed again but settled down to hit four good boundaries in his 20. But any hopes England had of their captain pulling them out of the fire evaporated when he was squared up by an absolute beauty from Nortje and could do nothing other than edge the ball to Keegan Petersen at third slip.
Not that the dismissal of stokes was the most significant wicket. that came when Joe Root was desperately unlucky to be given lbw to the left-armer Jansen by umpire Nitin Menon to a ball technology says would have just clipped leg-stump.
This was unquestionably the downside of the Decision Review system. Before technology there is no way Root would have been given out to the swinging delivery into his pads. He would have been given the benefit of what was clearly doubt.
Remember, there is a predictive element to HawkEye and even though it is admirable, umpire’s call means the decision stays with the on-field official, and Menon got this one wrong because the margin for error was so small.
By that time Zak Crawley had followed Lees in falling cheaply, edging a good delivery from Rabada having looked a bit more solid since we last saw him, perhaps benefiting from two weeks under the guidance of trevor Bayliss with London spirit.
But the sad fact is, even though stokes remains steadfast in his support of Crawley, he has now failed to make a half- century in nine test innings this summer. there is backing a player and then there is stubbornness. surely if Crawley fails again in the second innings he has to be taken out of the firing line and Harry Brook given a chance.
When Ben Foakes played on to Nortje, England were in big trouble. But at least Pope remains, finding a perfect combination of positivity in hitting four boundaries and defence in a display of what Bazball is meant to be all about.
It was apt Ian Bell rang the Lord’s bell before play because Pope has rarely looked more like the former England batsman in style, only getting it wrong when he drove Nortje through the slips on 45 and saw Petersen get a finger on a half chance.
While Pope is still there, England will believe they can get out of this mess and stokes will have no doubts about his methods, whatever happens today.
But first blood to south africa and their traditionalist captain « in Elgar.