Plays of the day: Big Vern has Keaton Jennings in his headlights

BIG Vern One’s almost inclined to feel sorry for Keaton Jennings. In this series against a masterful seam bowler in Vernon Philander, it’s been the proverbial “deer in the headlights.” stuff from Jennings. Philander has bowled 23 balls at Jennings in this series, and has dismissed him more times – three – than the amount of runs – two – Jennings has scored off him. Marvellous Morkel His dismantling of Joe Root yesterday was one of the highlights of the series thus far. In the 33rd over Morkel had Root poking and prodding at balls, beating the bat four times; three on the outside edge another time on the inside, undoubtedly leaving a bruise on his thigh. He backed that over up with another maiden, and the work he did helped Philander dismiss Root with an absolute gem shortly afterwards. Catching Dean Elgar held a beauty diving forward at third slip to get rid of Jennings, Faf du Plessis snapped up a slick chance to dismiss Tom Westley, while Quinton de Kock went goalkeeper style to his right to catch one off Root. Cook While the rest of his teammates searching for the ball, he just got into line, blocked, left, glanced, flicked, (very rarely) drove and poked his way to a fine 82 not out. Oval Highlight The official programme contains numerous anecdotes about players and matches past at The Oval. One of those of course is about Devon Malcolm’s spell against SA in 1994. It contains the following quote from former SA seam bowler Craig Matthews about Fanie de Villiers’ bouncer and the aftermath thereof: “(The bouncer) probably wasn’t the wisest move. You could immediately tell that Devon wasn’t a happy man. Allan Donald came up to check if he was okay and was sent away with a flea in his ear.” Conditions The pitch, the groundsman admitted, had a lot of moisture below the surface, which probably impacted on the pace off the surface, which was slightly slow. Nevertheless, under overcast skies on a well-grassed pitch, it was very much a bowlers’ day, which made Root’s decision to bat at the toss a brave one.