Must-win game for England

The sun beat down in Port Elizabeth yesterday, lobstering the legs and noses of newcomers in South Africa to support England during the second Test which starts today and sucking the moisture from the St George's Park pitch.

Yesterday, it appeared to be bleaching up, with the first hint of cracking on the surface, a sign that despite the groundsman's best endeavours to retain some dampness it is already drying out.

On the basis that it is a bat-first pitch with the chance of uneveness later, England seem set to include Phil Tufnell and will choose between Alex Tudor's pace and bounce (and no balls) and Chris Silverwood's bounding enthusiasm for the final seam bowling slot, assuming that Alan Mullally does not make a miraculous recovery.

Mullally made an appearance in the nets yesterday afternoon but with little conviction. He will see a specialist again this morning when he is expected to have another scan on his side injury.

Nasser Hussain said he would give Mullally every opportunity to declare himself fit, but the prospect of going into a five-day Test with a bowler who has undergone diagnostic treatment hours before the start of play doesn't bear thinking about.

Already, England have reached the stage where it is make or break. They may no longer be - in one publication's unofficial estimation anyway - the worst team in the world, but they know that if South Africa go two-nil up there is almost certainly no way back in the series.

They have first and foremost not to lose, and ideally they need to win, not just to level things but to regain credibility, self-belief and impetus. To knock the South Africans back in their tracks in other words.

To achieve this they need good runs at which to bowl, which will require luck with the toss (the tally stands at nine in a row lost in Tests abroad and all eight lost so far on this tour), good techniques with selective strokeplay and a game plan.

They also need to focus on what lies ahead rather than what has preceded, and then produce aggressive purposeful and thoughtful bowling with the new ball, allied to patience and discipline with the old one. It will not be a sneeze.

The key to the batting, as it has been for years, is the performance of Mike Atherton. This will be Atherton's 92nd Test and he has scored 12 hundreds. Of those, only the 101 he made against New Zealand at Trent Bridge 1994, and the 118 he carved out in the second innings at Christchurch, have contributed to England wins.

However, once and only once, when he made 144 against West Indies in Georgetown five and half years ago, have England lost when he makes three figures. An Atherton century, it seems, is England's insurance policy: he is the belt and braces of the batting line-up.

And if you look for omens to signify a change in fortune (and after Johannesburg he would be forgiven for clutching at straws) it is that his second ball and first ball ducks might, were it not for an errant throw, have been followed by another in Durban without even facing a ball.

Atherton knows how extra tough it will be to face the opening overs but there is no greater mental strength in the game. When the stakes are highest, you cannot, honestly, discount an Atherton hundred.

England (from): M Atherton, M Butcher, N Hussain (capt), M Vaughan, AJ Stewart, C Adams, A Flintoff, A Tudor, C Silverwood, A Caddick, D Gough P Tufnell.

South Africa (from): G Kirsten, H Gibbs, J Kallis, D Cullinan, H Cronje (capt), J Rhodes, S Pollock, L Klusener, M Boucher (wkt), A Donald, P Adams, M Hayward.