CRICKET TEST MATCH:CONTROL OF the second Test shifted from South Africa to England yesterday. The wind had veered to the north-east overnight, drier and buffeting, bringing blue skies and creating a graveyard for bowlers. From this England established an advantage that could, especially if the uncertain Durban weather shifts yet again, give them the opportunity of forcing a win.
It will not be easy. It is only overcast conditions that will help the seamers while the pitch has no reputation for offering turn for the spinners.
England’s four-man attack will be stretched, although at Kingsmead the same might be said had they had five front-line bowlers at their disposal: the draw must remain favourite and the series, as no doubt suspected and even planned before it began, could come down to a shoot-out in the fourth Test at the Wanderers.
By the close of an elongated day, which started early to compensate for lost time on the first two days, England had reached 386 for five, a lead already of 43 with considerable power to add to that today.
For this they have to thank first of all Alastair Cook, who shrugged off the doubts of the past year – his own and those of others – and, with a display of monumental patience and self-discipline over almost seven hours, produced his 10th Test hundred in his 50th Test. Next there was Paul Collingwood, with whom Cook added 142 for the fourth wicket before the latter edged Morne Morkel, South Africa’s most persevering and successful bowler, low to second slip for 118.
Collingwood innings are rarely remembered as things of beauty. In fact they are rarely memorable at all, but he has made himself, through sheer dedication, into a rock within the team. Unobtrusively – a nudge here, a chop there, and once even a cover drive – he got to within nine of his own 10th Test hundred, an exercise in pragmatic batting, and an inevitability it seemed, until he tried to cut away an off break from the part-timer JP Duminy and was caught at the wicket. Four times now he has been dismissed in the 90s.
Finally there was Ian Bell, for whom the advent of the second new ball, and more trial by ordeal, seemed predestined. It is common knowledge now, though, that none of his Test hundreds has been made before another team-mate has first registered three figures.
Cook secured that for him and he played with elegance to the close, hitting, in his unbeaten 55, five fours, and a six struck beautifully off Paul Harris, the man who had humiliated him in the first Test.
When Bell is good, he is by a distance the most watchable batsman in the side: his cover drive late in the day, from Jacques Kallis, will not be bettered all series aesthetically or technically.
These have been anxious times for Cook, whose prolific figures from the early part of his career had begun to slip away as teams probed his weakness outside off-stump.
For Centurion he spent hours preparing under the tutelage of Graham Gooch and responded by being dropped first ball and then with two indifferent innings. Gooch has returned home now which is ironic, but his legacy surely has been to reinforce the benefit of patience.
South Africa did their duty in probing away outside off-stump, and Cook’s response was to ignore everything and add just a single run in the first 55 minutes of play. It takes a strong character to be able to do that: not once was he drawn, so that if he was not going to go to them, eventually the bowlers were forced to come to him. Once they did that, he was on his way.
The South African attack looked threadbare. The biffing wind, sufficient to dislodge hats and the bails at regular intervals, was, to a degree, disruptive to rhythm and made it hard graft for any seamer who had to operate from the Old Fort Road end, and there was greater discipline in the method than was shown in the raggle-taggle performance with the first new ball that got Andrew Strauss and England off to such a flier.
But Graeme Smith needs rejuvenation in his engine room.
The great Makhaya Ntini looks a shadow of the bowler he once was and but for political considerations might have been dropped. Waiting in the wings are not just Friedel de Wet but also the left-arm youngster Wayne Parnell who has made such an impact in the one-day game.
Dale Steyn, though, is as great a worry, a world-class fast bowler with an indifferent record against England that has brought him just 16 wickets at more than 47 runs apiece against a career average of 23. Perhaps there is a residual effect from the hamstring injury that kept him out of the first Test.
Morkel was the most dangerous, collecting three of the five wickets to fall, but there were times, not least early on, when Smith seemed so reluctant to use him that there were queries about his fitness. The outcome was that Kallis not only bowled but was forced to put a bit more oomph into his delivery and test his ribs more strenuously than he might otherwise have wanted although he did have Prior, unbeaten on 11 last night, dropped at short leg in the process as he fended a rib-tickler away.
When back to full bowling fitness Kallis will remain a handful.
SECOND TEST - South Africa v England Durban
Overnight: South Africa 343 (J H Kallis 75, G C Smith 75, A B de Villiers 50; G P Swann 4-110). England 103-1 (A J Strauss 54).
England First Innings
A N Cook c Kallis b M Morkel 118
I J L Trott c Boucher b M Morkel 18
K P Pietersen lbw b Harris 31
P D Collingwood c Boucher b Duminy 91
I R Bell not out 55
M J Prior not out 11
Extras lb4 w3 nb1 pens 0 8
Total 5 wkts (123 overs) 386
Fall: 1-71 2-104 3-155 4-297 5-365
To Bat: S C J Broad, G P Swann,
J M Anderson, G Onions.
Bowling: Steyn 27 6 61 0 Ntini 20 3 79 0 M Morkel 27 6 69 3 Kallis 14 1 43 0 Harris 22 2 91 1 Duminy 13 1 39 1.
