A brave partnership of 85 for the eighth wicket between Shaun Pollock and AB de Villiers helped South Africa to stave off defeat by England, and South Africa was finally saved by bad light on the fifth day of the second Castle Lager/MTN cricket Test at Kingsmead on Thursday.
The captains agreed at 10 to five to call it a draw, after bad light stopped play about an hour before the scheduled time.
South Africa started the day on 21 for one, chasing a mammoth target of 378 for victory. Realistically, their main objective was to bat out the day — a task that seemed increasingly unlikely when three wickets fell before lunch.
Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Rudolph shared a fourth wicket stand of 53 before Gibbs was caught in the gully off Ashley Giles for 36. This brought Jacques Kallis to the crease, but the hero of the first innings was unable to repeat his heroics, and was caught behind by Geraint Jones off Steve Harmison for 10, and South Africa were in trouble at lunch on 104 for four.
Rudolph and Martin van Jaarsveld raised local hopes with a partnership of 69 runs in the first hour after lunch, but three wickets in 20 deliveries sent hopes of saving the Test plummeting again.
However, the most experienced player in the South African team, Shaun Pollock, joined forces with one of the youngest members of the squad, AB de Villiers. They put on a magnificent fighting partnership of 85, and hopes of saving the Test soared once again. De Villiers reached his first half century in only his second Test, but England smelled blood when De Villiers ran his senior partner out for 35, with at least 20 overs remaining in the day.
Makhaya Ntini joined De Villiers, and while he looked positive, he also looked as if he could go out at any minute. It was growing increasingly gloomy, and once the artificial lights had taken over from the natural light, the umpires offered the batsmen the light which was accepted.
England lingered for about 15 minutes, but when it became clear that the light would not improve, the two captains agreed to call it a day. England go to the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town, starting on Sunday, with a one-nil lead in the five Test series.
Vaughan said he was delighted that England had maintained their record of not losing a Test in 2004.
”Once again, we showed our character. To come back from a 200 run deficit, and put South Africa under so much pressure was great. Once again, we dug deep. Our performance in the last three and a half days was extraordinary.” He said he was very pleased to be going to Cape Town with a one-nil lead.
”I’d prefer to be in my shoes than in Graeme Smith’s,” he said. ”We’re going to go to Cape Town and play as well as we did the last three days.”
Smith conceded that South Africa had been a bit lucky at the end, but said he believed South Africa had fought very hard over the last two days.
”We were on top of this Test match after two and a half days, but we didn’t finish it off and they came back and played superbly. We had to fight from there on. We were a bit lucky, but there was also a superb partnership between Polly and AB.”
He said the ending had been bittersweet for both captains, but he felt South Africa could take a lot out of the match.
”We are much more confident in our dressing room than if we had gone two down. But we’re still one-nil down and we’ll have to play very well to come back into the series. We go to Cape Town in a lot better position. We’ve got to improve in a few areas, and who knows what can happen. We win there, and we go one-all to Johannesburg.” – Sapa