‘A defeat will at least be of the honourable kind in the flu-ridden circumstances’
Opener Burns leads chase of 376 for improbable win Sickness not an excuse for poor bowling and tactics
England, largely in the person of Rory Burns, made a good fist yesterday of their run chase against South Africa. They even went some way to erasing the memory of their bowling, which was passable at times, but at others veered from dross to drivel.
England’s target of 376 still looks insuperable – it would be their record run chase, even higher than the 359 which they chased down at Headingley against Australia back in August by one wicket – and South Africa are halfway to being rearmed with a second new ball. But a defeat will at least be of the honourable kind in the flu-ridden circumstances, rather than the opposite which it had threatened to be, and will give England hope they can yet win this four-match series.
Burns already has the distinction of being the only England opening batsman of the past 15 years to have scored home and away Test centuries apart from the knights Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss, and he is only 23 runs from a third (while 28 would take him to 1,000 Test runs). Burns was dropped when on 20 and South Africa’s wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock for the second time distracted first slip as the ball came to him, and he has used up a lot of the collective luck, but playing and missing is inherent on this uneven pitch. England had to start well, both to restore their self-esteem after their bowling meltdown and to give their ailing captain and keeper, Joe Root and Jos Buttler, time to recover: Root, wan and barely walking, stayed on the field long enough to make sure he did not have to bat at number seven or below, while Jonny Bairstow kept instead of Buttler.
Burns and Dom Sibley, who put on 92 for England’s opening stand – and apart from Burns, there are Joe Denly, Root, Ben Stokes, Bairstow and Buttler, all present at that epic occasion at Headingley, still to be dismissed.
Sibley has a top-draw temperament for a new batsman but the longer he bats the more his technical limitations appear. This time he made it through the new ball, only to get bogged down by the leftarm spin of Keshav Maharaj. Sibley was stuck at one end, rather rigid, unable to rotate the strike, or otherwise score except against the leg stump half-volley, and he did not sweep here or against the similar Mitchell Santner in New Zealand. He is going to have to bank plenty of runs in this series to survive the next in Sri Lanka, with India next winter’s Test assignment. But England had lost all realistic hope of winning this game long before they batted. It was when they tried Bodyline that they lost the plot and the psychological advantage they had going into this series against the depleted and raw home side. If it was inept to allow South Africa to score 277, after they had been 72 for four overnight, it was indefensible that they did so at 4.4 runs per over.
It was not a good sign at the start of day three when a South African batsman on his Test debut, Rassie van der Dussen, and a nightwatchman in Anrich Nortje batted fairly comfortably through James Anderson’s opening spell. It is too early to say Anderson is over the hill, when his engine has enabled him to scale mountains, but snap and accuracy have both been missing in his comeback Test.
In any event, England should have stayed patient, and pitched the ball up, instead of being drawn into a bouncer war when Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer took over. Broad, in particular, should have known better. So should Root, sick as he was, and Stokes, inexperienced as he is as a leader. You would have to go a long, long way to find more senseless bowling than England’s on the morning of day three, unless it was theirs in the afternoon.
Vernon Philander has not tried Bodyline from round the wicket with five or six men leg side, yet England thought they knew better. No line and length for them, no patience, just misplaced aggression. Even if some players were suffering from flu, it was no excuse to wander so far off piste: all the more reason to stick to basics indeed, especially when thin cloud turned to thick, so floodlights were turned on. The ball might have been more likely to swing, had it been pitched up. Of course England had to bowl the especially at Nortje, but not as their stock ball which it became in the hands of Broad and Archer. When a bowler is bowling bouncers from round the wicket, and runs are at a premium, there are too many edges flying around, and too many extras, and too much waving of arms, and too much space for batsmen to score on the offside. Lo and behold, Archer dismissed Van der Dussen when he pitched the ball up as did Stokes when he drew Dwaine Pretorius and De Kock into a drive, but the damage had been done long since. The church band struck up to buoy home supporters further: they will have a revival of South African cricket to celebrate if they win this game. Their players may be less skilled but they have been tougher than England, especially when it comes to tail-end batting.
Even before England engaged in bouncer warfare, Van der Dussen and Nortje had seized the initiative with daring singles, to the point of taking the mickey. As England cast around for new Test players, especially batsmen, it is no cause for optimism that only Burns is an excellent fielder. A new consideration, the next time England consider spreading the field and bowling bouncers, is the over rate – and the two points deducted for each over unbowled under the regulations of the World Test Championship, of which this series is part. While England were busy turning themselves into a rabble they bowled 10 overs, not 15 as scheduled. Ah well, nothing that another Stokesian miracle cannot cure.