England seam quartet, with the help of a deteriorating Trent Bridge pitch, bowled Michael Vaughan’s team close to a series-leveling win in the third cricket test on Sunday.
England hit back after being shot out for a second-innings 118 runs and reduced South Africa to 63 for five in 33 overs at stumps on the fourth day after the tourists needed 202 runs to win.
South Africa will resume the final day on Monday needing 139 runs in 101 overs to take an unbeatable 2-0 lead while England needs to take five wickets to level the five-test series 1-1.
The worsening surface claimed 14 wickets on the penultimate day as batting became difficult with the bounce getting uneven. There were times when the ball shot along the pitch — one of them uprooting England batsman Mark Butcher’s off stump.
Neil McKenzie, six not out, and vice-captain Mark Boucher, nine not out, will carry South Africa’s hopes into the final day. The pair was instrumental in the tourists first innings when they shared 129 runs for the sixth wicket when face with the follow-on.
The pair dug deep to battle 48 minutes and 72 balls to survive the fading light. Bad light cut short the day’s play by 11 overs which will be added to the final day’s play.
After Shaun Pollock took six for 39 to swing the advantage in South Africa’s favour, James Kirtley, playing in his first test, and James Anderson, took two wickets apiece to check the Proteas’ run- chase.
Pollock became the latest member of his family to earn a place on the honours board at Trent Bridge. His father, Peter, took 10-87 and his uncle, Graeme, scored 125 to help South Africa win by 94 runs to claim the three-test series 1-0 in 1965.
”It is great to be up there with them,” said Pollock (30). ”They had a great test match between them, and helped the side win. I was quite keen to join in the family tradition.”
England took control of the test after hitting up a 445 runs in its first innings. South Africa then slumped to 132 for five before clawing back to reduce the deficit to 83 runs.
When England collapsed sensationally before and after lunch, its hopes of forcing a victory looked a distant reality.
Then a contentious umpiring decision — Graeme Smith adjudged leg before wicket off an inside edge — swung the pendulum in England’s favour as five wickets fell for 28 runs.
Smith’s record 661 series runs have been the cornerstone of the South African batting, and his dismissal was crucial to wresting the advantage.
Kirtley dismissed Smith and Jacques Rudolph in the space of three balls before Anderson, who returned to form with 5-102 in the first innings, struck with his fifth and 18th deliveries.
Anderson had Boeta Dippenaar caught at square leg before forcing star allrounder Jacques Kallis to play on a ball that kept low.
South Africa was up against the pitch and history to secure a victory. Only two teams have successful chased over 200 runs in the fourth innings and won here in 50 tests.
Pollock, who will miss the fourth test at Headingley when he returns home for the birth of his first child in Durban, bowled superbly in his two spells including 4-25 in 9.4 overs after lunch.
It was his 15th five-wicket haul in his 73rd test, and the first major haul after claiming just eight wickets in the five previous England innings.
It also ended a lean spell for the former captain after he had gone 12 tests without taking five wickets in an innings.
His efforts with the ball followed his invaluable 64 runs which helped the tourists reduce the lead.
Starting the day with the crucial first innings lead of 83 runs, England crashed to 44 for five just 30 minutes before the lunch break.
Former skipper Nasser Hussain then held the innings together for two hours and scored 30 while the big-hitting allrounder Andrew Flintoff smashed 30 runs with a six and four boundaries just to tilt the match marginally in England’s favour.
Pollock, who dismissed opener Marcus Trescothick with the first ball of the second innings late on Saturday, also dismissed Vaughan, Hussain, Flintoff, Ashley Giles and last man Anderson.
Wicketkeeper Boucher snared four catches to take his career tally to 250 dismissals in 63 tests. He’s only the fifth ‘keeper since Australians Ian Healy and Rodney Marsh, West Indian Jeff Dujon and England’s Alan Knott to reach the milestone.
Medium paceman Andrew Hall, who dismissed Butcher and Ed Smith with successive balls, finished with 2-6.
In a remarkable morning session, England lost Vaughan to Pollock in the fifth over before Hall and Kallis bowled in tandem to crush the home side’s hopes of pushing for the series-leveling win.
Hall, who replaced Pollock from the pavilion end, uprooted Butcher’s off stump with a ball that hardly bounced, and then trapped Smith leg before wicket with the next ball.
Alec Stewart, who denied Hall off a hat-trick, then played a loose shot at Kallis and was caught behind for five runs. – Sapa-AP