”Fabulous” is how Graeme Smith described his feelings after South Africa beat England by 196 runs in the fourth Castle Lager/MTN Test at Newlands to level the series and bring to an end England’s 13-Test unbeaten run.
England were all out for 304 an hour and 22 minutes after lunch to give South Africa their first Test win since they beat New Zealand in Wellington in March last year.
England resumed play on Thursday morning on 151 for five. Shaun Pollock made the initial breakthrough with the third over of the new ball and sixth over of the series when danger man Graham Thorpe got an outside edge to a delivery that cut back at him, and AB de Villiers took the catch to send Thorpe back for 26.
Geraint Jones and Ashley Giles fought a brave rearguard action, with a seventh-wicket partnership of 62 runs in an hour and 23 minutes, but Nicky Boje struck twice in eight balls just before lunch to capture both wickets, with Jacques Kallis taking the catch in the slips on both occasions. Giles made 25 and Jones 38.
Matthew Hoggard and Simon Jones continued to frustrate South Africa, putting on 28 runs together, but Jones finally went, caught by Kallis off Pollock for 19. Steve Harmison joined Hoggard, and had fun with the bowlers, hitting 42 runs, including a six and seven fours, before he was brilliantly caught by Boeta Dippenaar off Makhaya Ntini. It was his highest Test innings and was scored at a rate of a run a ball.
Pollock and Boje ended with four wickets each, with Ntini bagging two. Kallis, who made 149 in the first innings, and 66 in the second, was named man of the match.
Smith said the victory gave South Africa renewed confidence in their ability to win Test matches, and he is looking forward to the fourth Test at the Wanderers, starting next Thursday.
”We’re not thinking we’re world-beaters now — there are still two big games in the series, and we’ve got to go and perform well. We start again at the Wanderers, and another big team performance at the Wanderers would be fantastic.”
He said he believes South Africa can carry the momentum forward and win the series.
”If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t be going to Johannesburg,” he said. ”We believe we can go and win the series, but we know we’ve still got a lot of hard work to do. We’re looking forward to Jo’burg and Centurion — we always like playing there, and hopefully we’ll get a lot of South African support there as we did here in Cape Town.”
England ‘fully expect to perform better’
Defeated England captain Michael Vaughan said England are disappointed at their loss, but South Africa fully deserve their victory.
”They played better than we did over the five days and applied the pressure.
”If we continue to keep making low scores in the first innings, it’s going to put us under a lot of pressure. We’ve done that in two games. In Durban, we got out of it by doing fantastically in the second innings, but we just gave ourselves too big a task in the second innings here.
”It’s something we must put right in the next week. We must make sure we get a big score on the board. If we do that, we know we can put the South Africans under a lot of pressure.
”The series is there for us to win,” he said. ”We’ve just got to improve our game. We’re certainly good enough players to go out and do it. I’ve got enough faith in the coach and in our team to get the best out of ourselves in the next week or so.
”We’ve got a good break before the next Test, and it gives us time to recharge and work on our game individually.
”I’ve got every confidence in the character of our team to come back from a disappointing defeat. We’ve played some great cricket in the last 15 months, and we’ve lost one game of cricket. I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions. It was a huge disappointment to lose, but we’ve got two games to go, and we fully expect to perform better.”
Langeveldt still a hopeful
A hand surgeon confirmed on Wednesday that South African swing bowler Charl Langeveldt had an uncomplicated fracture of the fifth metacarpal on his left hand.
Langeveldt sustained the injury on Monday, when a delivery from England’s Andrew Flintoff struck him on the hand on the second day of the third Castle Lager/MTN Test match.
Cricket South Africa’s media manager Gerald de Kock said Langeveldt would undergo aggressive treatment of the injury, and the situation would be reassessed in seven days time — the day before the start of the fourth Test at the Wanderers in Johannesburg.
”He is definitely not out of the equation,” said De Kock. ”We have every hope that he will be able to play in the fourth Test.”
A special splint has been made to protect his left hand while batting, and Langeveldt will try this out in the nets over the next few days.
Tickets for the next Castle Lager/MTN Test match at the Wanderers Stadium from January 13 to 17 can now be purchased at Computicket. Tickets range in price from R15 to R21 per day for scholars and R21 to R57 for adults.