Nasser Hussain said South Africa were there for the taking. Graeme Smith responded by noting that the England captain was under pressure. We all know now who came off best out of that little exchange — but if Smith needed a reminder of how quickly fortunes can change in cricket, it came in the fourth over at Lord’s on Thursday when the South African captain dropped Marcus Trescothick at slip.
Still, the least of Smith’s concerns in the second Test match would have been his memory. As he noted during his contretemps with former South African coach Bob Woolmer a month or two ago, he’s only 22 and is still in pretty good shape.
As it happened, Makhaya Ntini came to Smith’s rescue by bowling Trescothick shortly afterwards but, more pertinently, the decision to send England in to bat reflected a far more confident, aggressive South African frame of mind.
It was, as Smith conceded, a risk, but then bowling first in a Test match is always a chancy business. You have to believe your bowlers are up to it, you have to think there’s something in the pitch to be exploited and you have to hold your catches.
There is another, less readily acknowledged, reason for bowling first and that is when your batsmen don’t fancy facing up to the opposing attack. In South Africa’s case this was clearly not a factor, not after the 300-plus opening partnership at Edgbaston a week ago.
Most captains, though, would still have batted first and, all else aside, you have to recognise that Smith offered his team a full vote of confidence.
Judging by the performance of Smith’s bowlers on Thursday, it was a decision well made. He has a better attack for this match, of course. Jacques Kallis remains about as irreplaceable as any modern player, but the call-up of Andrew Hall and the recall of Paul Adams should improve the team considerably.
For all of Smith (and Herschelle Gibbs, for that matter) at Edgbaston, South Africa simply did not look fully equipped. It’s a tough enough task to bowl the opposition out twice at the best of times — more so when, effectively, you only have three wicket-taking bowlers.
So Adams’s inclusion at Lord’s is to be welcomed. Now 25, it seems unlikely he will ever hold up an end for hour after hour, but that’s not what you want him to do. One selection panel after another has laboured under the misapprehension that Adams will eventually learn to bowl in one-day cricket.
All the evidence, however, suggests otherwise. The simple truth about Adams is that he doesn’t like batsmen getting after him. But when he’s bowling with runs on the board and fielders cluttered around the bat, he comes into his own.
His unique action, the facet of his game that drew attention to him in the first place, almost ensures he will struggle to control his length, but on his day his mixture of fizzers, full tosses and long hops can prove to be lethal. South Africa had much the better of the first Test, but the real significance of the draw was that it levelled everything out and set up the rest of the series.
England, under their new captain, may well improve through the season, and the last two South African tours of England have shown that it’s not who starts best but who finishes strongest that matters. It’s a marathon and not a sprint. One tends to think, though, that Smith knows this already.