Too Many Bloody Cooks – Day One at Centurion

The great Richie Benaud once said that you shouldn’t expect anything from debutants. Pah! What did the doyen of cricket, and one of the best cricketing minds in history, know about the game eh?

Unfortunately England were derailed by an absolutely brilliant debutant today. His name? Stephen Cook. The son of Jimmy Cook, the great Somerset opener who played three tests for South Africa immediately their readmission. I remember him well. He would’ve played a hell of a lot more international cricket if it wasn’t for politics. A first class average of 51, with 64 hundreds in 270 first class games says everything. Jimmy was an excellent player.

Unfortunately for Cook senior though, he had to wait until he was 39 to play test cricket. He made a duck on debut and only scored 107 runs in his six test innings. His son, who’s had to wait until his early thirties to get a game, has already scored more test runs than his Dad! But perhaps Jimmy shouldn’t feel so bad. His son has already scored more runs in this series than Alastair Cook. Who says that too many Cooks spoil the broth?

As for England it was a poor day. Maybe we were flat because we’ve already won the series? I doubt it actually. I think it was just a good day for batting and a relatively flat pitch. Once again there was precious little swing until Stokes got some reverse in the afternoon session. Jimmy Anderson would have been highly motivated after AB de Villiers’ suggestion that he’d lost half a yard of pace, but it just didn’t happen for him. He’s having a particularly poor series I’m afraid.

The other bowlers, with the exception of Stokes and Moeen (if you’re happy to excuse the odd extremely slow beamer) also disappointed. Broad was much like the Broad we saw in the first innings at Joburg (the not so good Broad we’ve been talking about recently), and Woakes was, erm, Chris Woakes.

I’ve been on Woakes’ back in the past so I’ll try to go easy on him. I think he’s improved as a bowler and I do think he has some kind of future in international cricket (I like his batting!), but he was rubbish today. Apparently he was preferred to Footitt, who has been tearing up trees in practice, because the pitch looked sluggish. They thought Woakes would keep control. Wrong! He went for six an over in his first two spells. Footitt would’ve made for a more interesting day.

England weren’t just poor with their bowling though; the fielding also let them down. Although James Taylor pulled off another miracle catch – I mean ‘miracle’ in the sense that he somehow managed to wrap his testicles around the ball when it landed in his midriff – our catching was pretty lacklustre.

I’m sad to report that Jonny Bairstow shelled another two important catches. He dropped Amla early- or rather he helped Alastair Cook to drop him at first slip by diving across him unnecessarily – and then he dropped Stephen Cook on 47. Both batsmen went on to make centuries.

I’m inclined to be a little more sympathetic about the first drop, but the second one was awful. Jonny took a fateful step to the left (when there was absolutely no need) which left him unbalanced. He then needed to dive back to the right in order to catch the ball. He failed. Had he simply stood his ground it would’ve been a routine opportunity. It was an unsightly moment.

Thus far on the tour Bairstow’s excellent batting form has offset the damage done by his keeping. Unfortunately he’ll need to score at least a double hundred to make amends this time. Oooops. Grumpy Bob will have him in the dock tonight.

Although England had a poor day we actually fought our way back into the game an hour from the close. Stokes removed Amla, Broad sent Big Mouth de Villiers packing for a duck, and then Moeen trapped Duminy lbw. I think the shot Duminy played was one of the worst I’ve ever seen from a test number five. I hope he got an absolute bollocking, I mean err rollicking (this is a family site), from his teammates.

Unfortunately however, the second new ball was completely wasted again. This allowed South Africa to recover. Their 329-5 represents a good return on this pitch. Unless England can take early wickets tomorrow, and restrict them to 360-370 all out, the Proteas will be in the boks seat.

‘Boks’ seat. See what I did there? Never mind.

James Morgan