The Barmy Army were singing, Romesh & Rob were watching, and England’s batsmen were laughing. I thought our lead might be approaching 300 by the end of day three, but never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate the loss of just four wickets. Today went swimmingly, and South Africa look sunk.
The only time the bowlers dominated on day 3 was when Jimmy Anderson cleaned up the Cricket Bok’s tail. He completed a well earned 5-40, which will improve his record in South Africa (a rare blemish on his rather tasty CV) no end. There’s clearly life, not to mention sharp canines, in the old dog yet.
Thereafter bat dominated ball in the most pleasing way imaginable. It was a curiously insipid effort from the South Africans. Faf du Plessis, who has a good reputation as a tactician, soon resorted to strangely negative tactics. Asking Maharaj to bowl wide of leg stump (presumably to keep the runs down) was no way to get his team back into the game. A couple of wickets might have made all the difference but du Plessis didn’t look interested. Hasn’t he watched England bat recently? Personally I thought he rather let us off the hook.
None of this, however, should detract from England’s gloriously nerveless batting. Other than young Zak Crawley, who played some handsome shots but also looked a bit rattled at times, progress was serene.
Dom Sibley made the outstanding contribution of course. His patient unbeaten 85 was by far his Test best and exactly what was needed. Have we unearthed another open who might stick around for a few years? Sibley’s powers of concentration are a rare quality in modern English batsmen. He simply doesn’t care how quickly the scoreboard moves. And this was precisely the right approach with so much time left in the game.
The patient opener’s partnership with Joe Root, which took the game away from South Africa completely, was a compelling construct of contrasts. Dom stuck around and Joe stuck it to em’.
Root’s 61 was proactive, entertaining, and seized the initiative beautifully. What a shame that a good ball (which might have hit the large crack outside the right hander’s off stump) brought his innings to an end before he could press on towards a century.
The other batsman who deserves some credit is Joe Denly. Yes he got another start but failed to go on, but he ate up over 100 deliveries yet again and wore down the South African attack. This provided a fantastic platform and enabled Root to play with a little more licence.
I’ve heard some people complain that Denly scores too slowly but his strike rate doesn’t worry me personally. There are plenty of shots in his locker and he can play all around the wicket when he wants to. He drives pleasantly, he’s strong off his legs, and although it proved his undoing today he usually pulls with grace and authority. Yes he needs to make a hundred at some point, but he’s doing just fine in my humble opinion.
So where will this game head tomorrow? I assume that England will build a lead of around 400 and then ask Anderson and Broad to do their stuff. This seems like a reasonable plan to me. Nothing can stop us, right?
In theory, yes. But I do want to issue a slight word of caution. Although I expect England to win the game from this position, the pitch looked very sedate today. It’s easy paced and simple to bat on. The odd ball misbehaves when it hits that aforementioned crack, but other than that it’s hard work for the bowlers. Having said that, I’ll still be amazed if South Africa chase down a massive 4th innings total. It would be a miracle.
James Morgan
“I’ve heard some people complain that Denly scores too slowly but his strike rate doesn’t worry me personally.” Don’t worry they of little understanding will have the hundred to amuse them this summer…
One of those “people” was Kevin Pietersen on Talksport on Day One. I agree with him. His point was that if you need to survive 300 balls to make 100, you’re not going to make many hundreds against decent bowlers. He needs to find a way to get his strike rate closer to 50.
KP is thinking if we had someone at 4/5/6 who could adapt and bat long.. we don’t.. we have a gun ho 4/5 and unproven pope at 6… What we need from our Top 3 is quite simple.. Just bat time.. if they go at 30-50SR.. who cares.. that’s what our ‘fearsome’ middle order is for…
Impressed by Sibley. Mature and intelligent innings. Can he cope with a pitch helping seamers or a raving turner? We’ll see. He’ll get the chance.
He needs to get more runs regardless of how fast they come. His test average is 31 which is poor. If he was 23 then it would be a promising start. But he isn’t – he is pushing 34. At his age its not about potential, he needs to be doing it now.
Sibley is 24. You are thinking of Denly who is 33.
Sibley will rightly be seen as an old-fashioned crease-occupying opener. But he also seems to have the gift of having time to play his shots, if he chooses. He hit one short delivery from Nortje (over 90 mph) off his hips with a perpendicular bat, and it came right off the middle and sped for four. I also note that he scored a hundred off about 140 balls for Warwickshire at the end of last season, admittedly on an easy pitch, having scored a double century in the first innings. Above all he appears to have the temperament.
Never mind all that blah. Can this Sibley geezer play a decent game of warm-up footy?
Ha ha! :-)
Sibley’s was the performance that made this a great day for England – Anderson and Root have already proved themselves capable of top drawer performances in any and all circumstances. When Burns recovers from his f**tball related injury he and Sibley with Denly in his current adhesive style at 3 will give England their most stable top three since Strauss, Cook and Trott were in their prime nearly a decade ago. And of course coming in at 120-2 instead of 20-2 makes a huge difference to Root.
Interesting interview between Hussein and Root about captaining the terrible twins Anderson and Broad and the long term development of this England test team.
Hussein asked the right questions but let Root get away with some of the most inalienable dribble I’ve heard from any England captain, implying all is well with the game and everything will come good in the end if we give it time. Without ever sounding remotely convincing Hussein never pushed Root to justify his puerile generalisations, which seems odd to me given his oft expressed concerns about the direction the game is taking. We might just as well have had Giles or Mr Ed conducting the interview.
I know Root has to believe in what he is doing and what is going on around him but this was a cop out.
No matter what they do on the field Anderson and Broad can never compensate for the damage they did to England by joining the Prior/Swann led clique.They did Pietersen up like a kipper (and I am no fan of KP), they drove players like Bell into early exile and who knows how many players failed to come through due to the toxic atmosphere they promoted. We can admire their ability without praising them as men.
Ok a good day, but how often have we seen this and then it all goes pear shaped again? They always just do enough for the powers that be to carry on the same old way.
Having seen Sibley bat many times I am still not convinced on his technique, but he has exactly the right temperament for a test opener. And I was loving his approach to Maharaj – if it pitches outside leg kick it away. No risk at all. But I still think this test is 50/50 between an England win and a draw. I would assume England will want a lead of 420/430, and that will mean SA have about 4 and a half sessions to bat out. On this wicket that is possible, especially since the rough targetted by Maharaj will be of no use to Bess as an off spinner (too wide even to bother their lefties). Best news is the weather forecast as we should get a full 2 days play available.
No chance of a draw mate, they could declare now and roll them tomorrow. Even conservative England should have this wrapped up by morning day five.
In which case you should take the 2-9 available for an England win. I prefer the 7-1 available for a draw. England should win, but those odds are skewed.
The question you should be asking yourselves how on earth did you lose a series to NZ? Ended up being nearly as uncompetitive vs Aus as Pakistan. we are looking forward to the next Ashes whitewash.
No mystery. A chairman of selectors named after a talking horse (which is very offensive to the horse) and a captain who is a true test bat but has the skippering ability of the captain of the Titanic.
Sibley following Burns in showing the “you can’t just pick the players who score most CC runs – we need to use Ed Smith’s hunches backed by who’s shown most character at one of Andy Flower’s Sandhurst get-togethers” to be the tosh it is. Oh well, with Burns looking out of the SL tour they’ll give Keaton ‘Character’ Jennings another go.
As for the SA bowling performance, it was truly lamentable. Maharaj got an absolute beating on the recent tour of India and it shows. Philander can’t hack back-to-back Tests with his age and condition. Rabada has been under-performing for a while which has been masked by some juicy pitches and mopping up the tail. Whether he’s been ground down by his workload or is carrying some long-term injury (or both), who knows? He certainly has lost his away-swinger.
Anyway, that’s the kindest interpretation I can put on SA’s performance. If England have to work very hard to complete the win then maybe one can say the pitch has eased (and it would be fair to say the gren edges have gone from the cracks) but I doubt it.
Could Denly be the next Navjot Singh Sidhu?
I don’t care about his strike rate, or much about his average, if Denly continues to eat up 100-plus deliveries on a regular basis.
His role is a bit like a spinner who bowls long spells at 2 an over but without taking wickets – such players can be extremely valuable to the team as-a-whole.
Of course it is not ideal, but with England’s current dearth of top-notch batting (and spin) talent, we need to make the best of what we have.
Now that Burns is out, and Denly has been de facto opening, he looks like the obvious choice to step up for the next few matches; maybe swapping with Crawley.