South Africa batted their way to a dominant position at tea in the third Castle Lager/MTN cricket Test at Newlands in Cape Town. The homeside notched up 441 runs for 142.1 overs, with spinner/all-rounder Nicky Boje and Jacques Kallis providing most of the runs on the second day.
Kallis was out on 149, marking a continuation of glorious form so far in the series. The knock was Kallis’ 19th Test century and the second of the series. Boje was the last batsmen to go, bowled out for a useful 76 from 97 balls, caught behind off a Andrew Flintoff snorter. Kallis and Boje shared a partnership worth 104 runs.
It was Boje who took the attack to England, who had once again been bowling defensively wide of the off stump. He reached his first half century for South Africa since 2000 off 81 balls, and hit seven boundaries on the way.
Kallis fell one run short of 150 when he was caught by Geraint Jones pushing at a ball from Andrew Flintoff. The burly English bowler struck again in the same over when Makhaya Ntini got a leading edge three balls later, to be caught at midwicket by Michael Vaughan.
Charl Langeveldt, playing in his first Test, had a rude introduction to Test cricket when he received a painful blow on his left hand from Flintoff. But he managed to get five runs on the board before Boje, who had been playing with freedom and verve, was caught by Geraint Jones off Flintoff for 76.
Flintoff was the best of the England bowlers, taking four wickets for 79 runs. Spin bowler Ashley Giles took a bit of a pounding, conceding 105 runs off his 35 overs.
It appeared that England had briefly seized the initiative earlier on in the morning, capturing three wickets for the addition of 90 runs. South Africa went to lunch on 337 for seven.
Jacques Kallis and Hashim Amla survived a torrid first half hour in which Steve Harmison was particularly aggressive. He hit Kallis on the right hand with the first delivery of the morning, and in the second had Kallis tumbling to the ground as he tried to duck a bouncer.
But it was Matthew Hoggard who made the first breakthrough when Amla was given out lbw for 25 — his highest score in Test cricket. He was generally regarded as having been unlucky, because while the ball was going straight, it appeared to be too high.
AB de Villiers and Kallis put on 49 runs together before De Villiers charged down to a delivery from Ashley Giles, which he missed, and he was bowled for 21.
Shaun Pollock, still recovering from a finger injury he sustained when Harmison hit him on both hands in successive overs, lasted just eight minutes before he nicked a ball that was caught behind by keeper Geraint Jones off Andrew Flintoff for four. Ntini didn’t last very long and was out for a duck from a Flintoff ball.
Despite South Africa’s intimidating score the England coach Duncan Fletcher remained bizarrely upbeat about country’s performance and the more than 400 run mountain they have to chase.
”We’re quite happy with our performance on that wicket,” said Fletcher. ”I think the guys have done a good job, because it’s quite a flat track and a fast outfield and it’s not offering the bowlers anything. From our point of view, we’d have looked to have scored over 300 if we were only four down on the first day, so it was pleasing to restrict them to around 250. I think if we can restrict them to around 350 or 400 that would be a good effort,” he said on cricketing website Cricinfo.
England have enjoyed good form lately. From being one of the struggling cricketing nations, they have recently come back strongly to occupy position number two in the world after Australia — a position South Africa held for years until suffering a temporary loss of form. – Sapa