Swing will come as pitch dries out, says Dale

ON A LARGELY frustrating day for the Proteas, it was Dale Steyn who spread some glitter around a packed Kingsmead in a superb performance with the ball after six weeks out of action.

It was notable that Steyn’s first phrase to describe his absence with a groin injury was that it was “bloody frustrating sitting on the sideline and not being able to contribute”, and he tried to make up for it with some bowling out of the top drawer after Hashim Amla had won the toss and asked him to do his job of setting the tone for the team.

“As the leader of the attack, that’s what I tried to do, and it was great to get England’s captain in my second over.”

Steyn acknowledged he normally took a while to get up to speed after an injury break, but he had worked particularly hard in training – even losing a couple of kilos – and he felt fine throughout his 15.1 overs yesterday.

“The groin was fine and I’m happy with the way the ball came out today,” said the world’s No 1 fast bowler, who returned the excellent figures of 3/29 in 15.1 overs.

He said the moist outfield and intermittent showers had made the ball damp and this restricted the South African bowlers’ ability to make the ball swing and reverse.

On the other hand, the slow pitch had made batting difficult for the English batsmen, and they were never able to get away from the South Africans, scoring at less than three runs to the over.

“I think the weather is likely to get a lot warmer over the next few days and, hopefully, the drier outfield will allow us to reverse the ball more effectively tomorrow (today) and do some damage. Today it was damp and had mud clods on it and there was no swing.”

Steyn described the the tour to India as a “wake-up call for all of us.”

“I think we realised that we weren’t as good as we thought we were. I think the first cracks in the armoury showed in Bangladesh.

“Anyway, I’m happy to be back, and our focus is just to do the basics well over the next four days, and the series. If we can do that properly, our natural flair should help us to be successful.”

Steyn praised the English pair of Nick Compton and James Taylor, whose fourth-wicket partnership of 125 enabled the visitors to have a solid first day as they finished on 179/4 in 65.1 overs.

Compton and Taylor, who had both been out of the England Test team for more than two years, showed their value to the tourists after England had been 12/2 and 49/3 earlier in the day.

Although Taylor was dismissed by Steyn for a fine 70 shortly before the close, Compton – who was born and bred in Durban – enjoyed a happy homecoming with a undefeated 63 in 284 minutes.