South Africa vs England, 1st Test, Day 4.

Memories of England and Sri Lanka’s historic wins earlier in the year were in the forefront of everyone’s mind going into the fifth day as the similarities were startling. South Africa knew though that if their excellent new ball bowling partnership bowled with discipline then that would make things awkward for England on this difficult pitch.

Philander and Rabada executed the plan perfectly first up in the morning as Rory Burns was stranded down at Philander’s end. On a ground and pitch that throughout the match had seemed so easy to score quickly on the two openers found it slow going and were probably relieved to see off the opening spells.

The drop of in concentration from the batsmen that the backup bowlers brought defiantly contributed to Rory Burns’s wicket as he completely mistimed a pull of Norjte and was caught at the wicket.  Denly despite having pulled Rabada for two huge sixes in the first session was then LBW Pretorius to a ball he should have played straighter at. Suddenly then England were back in trouble and it was by balls bowled by the so called back up bowlers although the two strike bowlers probably had to take a lot of the credit.

Stokes came in with 218 still required for victory the exact same equation that he faced at Headingley four months earlier. Lunch was taken with South Africa still with their noses in front. After lunch Du Plessis rolled the dice slightly by turning to the off-spinner Maharaj to get through a few overs to the new ball. Initially this appeared to backfire as Stokes and Root struck his first over for 13.

In his second over however he bowled a much tighter line to Stokes who he bowled via a deflection of his glove and the game felt it had swung heavily towards the hosts. The timing couldn’t have been more unfortunate for England as a few moments later Rabada and Philander had a brand new cherry in their hands with the new batsmen Bairstow firmly in their sites.  

After clipping one of his legs for four Bairstow fairly foolishly followed a wide away swinger with little footwork and was caught in the gully region. Root soon followed hanging his bat out at a wide one which meant unless Buttler could single handily smash double what Stokes and Leach did at Leeds the game was up.

Just before tea on the fourth day Broad was bowled and the game was over and South Africa had won by 107 runs. It’s not difficult to see where England went wrong in this match as the margin of defeat is somewhat similar to the first innings lead that England surrendered. Root post match was determined not to blame the off the field issues that had blighted England throughout the match for the result. England must now head in the New Year to Cape Town where they will be met with thousands of travelling England supporters at a ground where they have a very poor record.

Read January’s edition of the SillyPoint magazine for the key talking points from this test match.

Scorecard

South Africa 1st Innings

Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s
D Elgar	c Buttler b Anderson	0	1	0	0
A K Markram	c Bairstow b Curran	20	23	4	0
Z Hamza	c Stokes b Broad	39	72	6	0
F du Plessis	c Root b Broad	29	80	5	0
H E van der Dussen	c Root b Curran	6	34	1	0
Q de Kock	c Buttler b Curran	95	128	14	0
D Pretorius	c Root b Curran	33	45	4	1
V D Philander	c Buttler b Broad	35	81	6	0
K A Maharaj	c Stokes b Archer	6	15	1	0
K Rabada	b Broad	12	24	3	0
A Nortje		0	6	0	0
Extras	4lb 0 3w 2nb	9
Total	for 10	284	84.3 overs

Bowler	O	M	R	W
J M Anderson	20	4	69	1
S C J Broad	18	4	58	4
S M Curran	20	5	58	4
J C Archer	19	4	65	1
J E Root	4	0	26	0
J L Denly	3	0	4	0

England 1st Innings

Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s
R J Burns	c de Kock b Philander	9	15	2	0
D P Sibley	c de Kock b Rabada	4	12	1	0
J L Denly	c de Kock b Pretorius	50	111	9	0
J E Root	c de Kock b Philander	29	49	5	0
B A Stokes	c de Kock b Nortje	35	46	4	2
J M Bairstow	b Nortje	1	6	0	0
J C Buttler	c de Kock b Philander	12	39	2	0
S M Curran	c Hamza b Rabada	20	24	4	0
J C Archer	b Philander	3	11	0	0
S C J Broad	c Elgar b Rabada	2	7	0	0
J M Anderson		0	2	0	0
Extras	4b 5lb 0 5w 2nb	16
Total	for 10	181	53.2 overs

Bowler	O	M	R	W
K Rabada	15	1	68	3
V D Philander	14	8	16	4
D Pretorius	8	2	23	1
A Nortje	12	2	47	2
K A Maharaj	4	1	18	0

South Africa 2nd Innings

Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s
A K Markram	lbw b Anderson	2	5	0	0
D Elgar	c Buttler b Archer	22	27	5	0
Z Hamza	c Buttler b Broad	4	16	0	0
F du Plessis	c Curran b Archer	20	28	3	1
H E van der Dussen	lbw b Archer	51	67	5	0
A Nortje	c Sub b Archer	40	89	6	0
Q de Kock	c Bairstow b Stokes	34	37	2	3
D Pretorius	c Sibley b Stokes	7	7	1	0
V D Philander	c Bairstow b Curran	46	68	4	0
K A Maharaj	c Curran b Archer	11	16	1	0
K Rabada		16	12	2	1
Extras	5b 3lb 0 9w 2nb	19
Total	for 10	272	61.4 overs

Bowler	O	M	R	W
J M Anderson	13	1	47	1
S C J Broad	11	2	42	1
J C Archer	17	1	102	5
S M Curran	12	3	51	1
B A Stokes	8	1	22	2

England 2nd Innings

Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s
R J Burns	c Rabada b Nortje	84	154	11	0
D P Sibley	c & b Maharaj	29	90	5	0
J L Denly	lbw b Pretorius	31	79	3	2
J E Root	c de Kock b Nortje	48	101	8	0
B A Stokes	b Maharaj	14	55	2	0
J M Bairstow	c Hamza b Rabada	9	25	2	0
J C Buttler	c Pretorius b Rabada	22	33	2	2
S M Curran	c de Kock b Rabada	9	10	2	0
J C Archer	c van der Dussen b Nortje	4	5	1	0
S C J Broad	b Rabada	6	6	0	0
J M Anderson		0	0	0	0
Extras	8b 3lb 0 1w	12
Total	for 10	268	93.0 overs

Bowler	O	M	R	W
K Rabada	24	3	103	4
V D Philander	20	8	35	0
A Nortje	17	4	56	3
D Pretorius	16	6	26	1
K A Maharaj	16	3	37	2