Scrambled England get egg on their face

It’s a Bazballs-up as tourists inflict innings defeat

DEAN ELGAR did say England could end up with egg on their faces in this Test series and South Africa served it up to them at Lord’s yesterday scrambled, poached and very hard-boiled.

An emphatic one-sided thrashing completed before tea on the third day of the first Test, effectively done and dusted in six sessions of play, was some bust for England after the boom of four victories in their first four games under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.

This was less Bazball and more a Bazballs-up with South Africa’s captain totally vindicated in his belief that England would be unable to produce their ultraaggressive brand of cricket against his brilliant and highly potent bowling attack.

In truth, defeat by an innings and 12 runs had nothing to do with England’s style of play and owed everything to high- quality pace and even spin bowling from the visiting team.

This followed a display of application from their batsmen that earned them a decisive 161-run lead over England.

And, it should be said, a very important toss to win with the revitalised Dukes ball swinging and seaming round corners for South Africa on a first day when the best attack in the world set the tone for this Test and possibly the whole LV= Insurance series.

Not that England can put anything that has happened here down to misfortune. Their batting was a shambles and their attack, in the continuing absence of their injured fastest bowlers, had none of the extreme pace and variations enjoyed by Elgar.

Yesterday was as miserable as anything suffered by England during the run of one win in 17 Tests that led to Joe Root, Chris Silverwood and Ashley Giles all losing their jobs and the dramatic change of personnel and style that had such immediate results.

England were in trouble going into the third day but any chance they had of another come-frombehind victory evaporated with baffling tactics from Stokes that saw him ignore Jimmy Anderson with the second new ball and instead try to bounce out South Africa’s tail.

It was too- clever-by-half thinking — or maybe just dumb — and led to South Africa adding another 37 runs in the first hour for their last three wickets, with resistance only ended when Stokes turned to Stuart Broad and saw him pitch the ball up.

The third innings of the Test has been the game- changer for England in all four of their earlyseason victories against New Zealand and India, but the difference this time was they were batting rather than setting themselves up for an against-the-odds chase.

Now, needing to bat for a long time, they could not even earn a lead and were hustled out for 149 in just three hours and 37.4 overs.

Together with being dismissed in 45 overs first time round they were unable even to last a whole day’s allocation of overs in the Test.

Even their two batting pillars in Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root were unable to stem the tide, Root pushing at a wide one from Lungi Ngidi and Bairstow edging a beauty from Anrich Nortje. But it was the early and predictable

departure of Zak Crawley that should trouble England the most.

He looked desperately out of touch against the seamers before falling while missing a sweep when Elgar surprisingly turned to the left-arm spin of Keshav Maharaj before lunch.

It really should be the end for Crawley now. However, England’s determination to back a player who clearly has talent but is now without a half century in five Tests this summer is in danger of becoming less stubborn and more just pig-headed.

As Mark Butcher said on Sky yesterday, England’s retention of Crawley is becoming cruel and they almost have a duty of care to an employee to take him out of the firing line and send him back to Kent where he could regroup and come again.

England have backed themselves into a corner by naming their squad for the first two Tests.

However, they must either pick Harry Brook out of position as an opener at Old Trafford next week in Crawley’s place or add Ben Duckett — who could do the job — to the squad. But do not bet on England seeing sense on this one just yet.

Elgar’s decision to turn to Maharaj looked inspired when he dismissed Ollie Pope with the help of a review on the stroke of lunch but it was the introduction of the rapid Nortje that broke any paltry resistance England had.

Bairstow’s dismissal came at the start of a three-wicket burst in 10 balls by Nortje — and all without conceding a run. The 28-year-old was topping 95mph and quickly also did for Alex Lees and Ben Foakes.

Broad indulged in a bit of Bazball — hitting Nortje for two fours and a top-edged six in the same over and finishing with 35 off 29 balls — but it was all over when Stokes was brilliantly caught on the boundary by Maharaj and Anderson was bowled by Marco Jansen.

Stokes insisted afterwards he would not throw his toys out of the pram and nor should he.

But while England are right to carry on with the methods that brought them that sensational success at the start of the season, they will need to be smarter against such a good side as this South Africa one.

If they just go ‘even harder’ as was the suggestion at Lord’s last night then Elgar could well whip that egg and fry England at Old Trafford and the Oval in the next two Tests.