CRICKET:TOMORROW, TO the dramatic backdrop of Table Mountain, comes the biggest test yet of the developing resilience of Andrew Strauss's team. Leading the four-match series by virtue of the mauling they inflicted on South Africa in Durban, they come to Newlands knowing that it is within their power, over the next few days, to win the series and render irrelevant the final Test in Johannesburg.
They also understand from experience that it pays not to get too far ahead of themselves. At home last summer they arrived at Headingley with similar ambition only to depart tails between legs. Now they find themselves at the ground which South Africa regard beyond all others as their hunting ground. Fourteen matches have they played there since readmission in 1992, and they have been beaten just three times, each by Australia. Three further matches have been drawn, generally a by-product of the weather, the rest won.
For England it represents a massive hurdle for, if they have had their success on all other South African grounds over that period, Newlands has remained a bridge too far, with losses by 10 wickets, an innings and 37 runs, and, last time, 196 runs. If they are choosing to push the portents of history to the back of their minds, then Strauss and Andy Flower recognise the dangers all right. England may have thoroughly outplayed South Africa in Durban, and the opposition may be in some disarray, but they were within a single delivery of losing at Centurion: this remains a close series.
Such was the overwhelmingly thorough performance by England at Kingsmead - in which the batsmen did a fine job in racking up more than enough runs with which the bowlers could work, and the bowlers, for their part, responded accordingly - there is little danger of a change to the balance of the side. Flower admitted yesterday that the decision to begin and then continue the series with four frontline bowlers was a close one, but that they realised that in Graeme Swann they had a spinner in whom they had absolute trust that he could bowl a lot of overs in all conditions. The pay-off, he knows, is a deep batting line-up. The circumstances of the series now, in which it is South Africa who have to do the catching up, mean that there is no chance of that balance being altered.
What has changed is the condition of Paul Collingwood’s left index finger.
He dislocated this digit on the fourth day in Durban during one of the intensive fielding sessions he undergoes before every day’s play.
Yesterday, ahead of schedule, he batted in the nets against medium pace and spin, had some throw-downs and did some reasonably gentle slip catching.
He is, as Flower admitted, absolutely bursting to play, but it is looking unlikely that he will.
As with Andrew Flintoff at Headingley, Collingwood will play if the England medical staff decide he is fit, not if Collingwood himself says he is.
Should he not recover in time, then it seems certain that the Hampshire left-hander Michael Carberry, will make his debut. Carberry will be 30 in September, but he had a successful season in England, impressed with the performance squad and, says Flower, looks like a fellow who knows his game.
