England have Proteas in a spin
ONLY RAIN IT SEEMS CAN SAVE THEM
Career-best figures by England skipper Root highlights SA’s batting frailties.
Part-time spinner Joe Root seemed as baffling as The Riddler for the South African batsmen as his off-break darts had them tossing and turning like patties on a hot griddle on the fourth day of the third Test against England at St George’s Park yesterday.
Root, whose previous best figures in 90 Tests were 2/9 and who had a bowling average of 52.20 going into the game, grabbed a jaw-dropping 4/31 in 19 overs as South Africa crashed to 102/6 at stumps. That was their follow-on innings after their first innings was wrapped up in just 28 balls on the fourth morning, the Proteas going from 208/6 to 209 all out.
“Today was very disappointing but it’s not a time to be pointing fingers, it’s a time to self-reflect. I need to look at myself and ultimately I must take responsibility and work out how I can mentally and physically up-skill the players in a short space of time. I need to find a way. It’s easy to point at the system, but there are no excuses,” coach Mark Boucher said after the close of play.
“Each guy has got his own game-plans and maybe they got a bit muddled. Sometimes they listen to the commentators talking about using their feet and being more dominant against spin, they want to dominate but conditions are very difficult, Joe Root is bowling quickly. There’s an element of risk so the guys need options and I have to try and give them those.”
Their first collapse was almost entirely due to ill-considered strokeplay against the second new ball.
Vernon Philander unfurled a booming drive in the first over of the day, leaving a big gate that Stuart Broad crashed right through to bowl the all-rounder for 27.
The next over saw top-scorer Quinton de Kock (63) aim a loose drive on the up against left-arm swing bowler Sam Curran and he was also bowled through the gate. Keshav Maharaj then tried to pull a good-length ball from Broad from outside off-stump and played on, before Kagiso Rabada ended the innings by lamely driving the same bowler to mid-off.
Broad finished with 3/30 from 13.4 overs, but the real destroyer of the first innings had been off-spinner Dominic Bess, who claimed a career-best 5/51 in 31 overs.
South Africa were forced to follow-on 290 runs behind and even though they were off the field due to rain for more than three hours, it was more than enough time for the top-order to once again produce a display of abject failure.
The fiery pace of Mark Wood accounted for Dean Elgar (15) and Zubayr Hamza (2), who was caught behind down the leg-side, before South Africa’s trial by spin began. But this time it wasn’t Bess who was busy notching career-best milestones but Root.
Root’s ninth delivery, on the stroke of tea started the demise when he trapped opener Pieter Malan lbw for 12.