CRICKET FIRST TEST:IT IS one of Test cricket's unique features that the highest drama the game has to offer can come from what is effectively a stalemate.
In the fullness of time the record books will show that the first Test ended in a draw, but few matches have ended in such nail-biting circumstances as were witnessed here yesterday.
After five days of skirmishing, with South Africa on top, England clinging on like terriers to the postman’s trousers, the outcome of the match depended on one final delivery from veteran Makhaya Ntini, in his 100th Test, to England’s last-ditch rabbit batsman Graham Onions. England were nine wickets down after a dramatic collapse of a kind that they ought long ago to have trademarked. Fail to survive, then, and South Africa would win a match that, until the advent of the brilliantly exploited second new ball, had been heading for a draw.
One ball for glory. Was it sentiment that made Graeme Smith, a brilliant captain in this match, turn to Ntini? Did he feel that a romantic outcome was written in the stars? But yesterday Ntini was out-bowled by the debutant Friedel de Wet. With Dale Steyn sure to return for the second Test in Durban next Saturday, it will be hard to drop him. The ball to Onions, perhaps Smith suspected, could be the last of Ntini’s illustrious career. Once more for South Africa.
But Onions, who had faced the final over of the match in its entirety, had found no demons. Ntini’s pace was down. The single shooter in the over, from one of the cracks in the pitch, was slow enough for Onions to jab down on.
The final ball was on a length and outside off stump. Onions shuffled in behind, played it down to the ground and made his way down the pitch to embrace Paul Collingwood, who had batted for the last two-and-half hours of the day for 26 and not turned a hair.
Thus ended an enthralling Test.
“We are,” said the man of the match Graeme Swann afterwards, “single-handedly keeping Test cricket alive.”
It was a quip, but he is right. Those who would have Test cricket wither away should have been at Centurion.
After Cardiff the team drew considerable strength from their escape, but this was different. At Cardiff they were expected to lose and did not; at Centurion they ought not to have lost at all and almost did. There is frailty, not strength there.
The drama began with the second new ball. Smith’s declaration on Saturday night was clever, designed not only to get among the England batting (resulting in the wicket of Strauss) but to ensure that, should they need it at the end of the final day, he would have 16 overs of the second new ball. All has depended on the new ball in this match for, once it has lost its hardness, batting has been considerably easier.
England were in a good position to save the game, if not actually think about winning it, when the ball was unwrapped and thrown to Ntini.
The early wickets of the nightwatchman, James Anderson, and Alastair Cook had been countered by a solid, if ironic, partnership of 145 between England’s two South African expatriates, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott. Pietersen, finding the timing that eluded him in the first innings, played superbly, surviving an lbw when 39 only because De Wet had overstepped. But he had made 81 when, shortly after the tea interval, he pushed De Wet towards short extra-cover and sprinted off. Trott, gobsmacked, remained rooted at the non-striker’s end as Pietersen roared past him. It was totally unnecessary and will lead to blame heaped on the batsman. But it is harsh judgment when he has top-scored.
Nor was Pietersen’s dismissal the catalyst for the mayhem in the last hour. England should have survived comfortably. Trott had begun his innings intent on occupying the crease rather than scoring, surrounded by his chattering chums as the mesmerising spinner Paul Harris floated ball after ball at him.
There is strong temperament there, though, and, with Pietersen gone, he found the ally in Collingwood. The pair had taken the score to 205 for four, with Trott, after over five hours, on 69 when things began to go pear-shaped.
The damage came from De Wet who, in quick succession, found a brute of a ball that caught Trott’s thumb and deflected down to be wonderfully caught at third slip by AB de Villiers; another excellent delivery to see off the hapless Ian Bell, who showed his old tendency to hang just inside the line, edging and well caught by Mark Boucher; and then getting one to climb at Matt Prior for Boucher once more to take the catch.
By the time Stuart Broad was caught behind off Harris, four had fallen for four runs in seven overs and survival seemed out of the question.
When Swann was lbw to Morne Morkel, Collingwood and Onions were left with 19 deliveries to survive and the game about up.
Onions, to his great credit, took a dozen of them and created his own niche in history along with Anderson and Monty Panesar.
Guardian Service
FIRST TEST
At Centurion Park, Pretoria
Overnight:South Africa 418 (Kallis 120, Duminy 56; Swann 5-110) and 301-7 dec (Amla 100, de Villiers 64, Boucher 63 no; Anderson 4-73). England 356 (Swann 85, Collingwood 50; Harris 5-123) and 11-1.
England Second Innings
A Strauss c Boucher b M Morkel 1
A Cook c Smith b Harris 12
J Anderson c Boucher b de Wet 10
I Trott c de Villiers b de Wet 69
K Pietersen run out 81
P Collingwood not out 26
I Bell c Boucher b de Wet 2
M Prior c Boucher b de Wet 0
S Broad c Boucher b Harris 0
G Swann lbw b M Morkel 2
G Onions not out 1
Extras (b10 lb3 nb11) 24
––––––
Total9 wkts (96 overs) 228
Fall of wickets:1-5, 2-16, 3-27, 4-172, 5-205, 6-207, 7-208, 8-209, 9-218.
Bowling:Ntini 18-7-41-0, M Morkel 18-3-46-2, Harris 26-11-51-2, de Wet 23-8-55-4, Duminy 8-2-17-0, Kallis 3-1-5-0.
South Africa drew with England
