There are nine days of Test cricket left in England’s tour of South Africa, but only bright-eyed optimists and Centurion tourism officials can believe we will see more than six of those days unaffected by rain. Given the meteorological history of the pretty venue south of Pretoria, the fourth Test at the Wanderers is suddenly looking like a soggy decider.
To believe the media (now curiously unanimous as local scribes, coy in the company of Fleet Street, shelve outspokenness in favour of more cosmopolitan ennui), England had their chance in Durban, and blew it. Newlands was a watershed, where the momentum passed from the tourists to the home team, and the rest of the series will see the bruised kid get off the canvass and sock the sneering favourite in the jaw. In the words of the King of Siam: ”etcetera, etcetera and so forth”.
”Outplayed and outclassed” was the phrase used by Michael Vaughan and his scribbling entourage, getting it half right. Jacques Kallis possesses fractionally more class than the whole English team combined, but outplayed? That’s like suggesting Bangladesh outplayed Zimbabwe this week for their first Test win. Outplaying had nothing to do with it. Both South Africa and Bangladesh simply hung around long enough to catch the falling pieces of their imploding opposition.
Certainly there was some beautiful batting from Kallis (who scored a third of South Africa’s runs and took two slip catches worthy of Mark Taylor himself), and Shaun Pollock’s dismissal of Graham Thorpe in the second innings elevated vectors to an art form; but the comforting win and the slightly bored self-flagellation from the touring press quickly disguised the fact that, of the 20 English wickets to fall, just 12 were taken by good bowling, and six of these were tail-enders.
The rest saw proper batsmen plonking half-trackers into the deep, flicking leg-stump deliveries to solitary square legs, cutting uppishly in the hope that Herschelle Gibbs would be looking somewhere else, or fluffing hooks at high balls going down the leg side. Indeed, Robert Key’s impression of George Custer summed it up: determined to fight to the last or else look good snuffing it sooner.
Despair (or at least resignation) on the part of English observers was an appropriate and justifiable attitude on that lovely Thursday afternoon last week; but as a pre-emptive view on the Test-and-a-half that remains it might be too pessimistic. To suggest that England can’t do worse in Johannesburg would be to invoke Murphy and ensure a sub-100 total in both innings; but realistically the tourists only need to perform adequately to match South Africa.
South Africa will make a fist of it at the Wanderers. Kallis is now the top-ranked batsmen in the world (another cue for Murphy, one suspects, to hand him a pair in Centurion), and Mark Boucher’s return pushes the balance of the team towards overkill. But still the questions asked of Pollock, Makhaya Ntini and the rest of the attack at Port Elizabeth and Durban remain unanswered. If Andrew Strauss doesn’t chop it on or get a rough decision, how do you get him out? If Key, a nervous newcomer, hadn’t snapped and rushed at Nicky Boje, what was their plan?
England’s plan is clear. Steven Harmison must realise he is about to leave South Africa with a reputation as a chucker of not particularly scary pies, and must bend his mind towards getting the ball up. Andrew Flintoff must nurse his side and admit that his round-the-wicket tactic at Jacques Rudolph might have reached its sell-by date. And Matthew Hoggard just needs three or four legal deliveries at Graeme Smith. A simple plan.
And one that should see England go — and stay — one up.