South Africa vs. England 4th Test Day 1 Review

South Africa bite back to set up an interesting day two

With a washed out morning, South Africa were looking to make up for the lost time to rain with an incisive start at Johannesburg when play finally started. Du Plessis lost his 7th toss in a row, and England duly chose to bat. South Africa opened up with two bowlers at the bookends of their test career. At one end – Vernon Philander, who’s playing in his last test match before retiring. At the other, Beuran Hendricks, a man on debut with an impressive First-Class record (302 wickets @ <24) who gave their bowling attack a new dynamic with his left-arm angle. The pitch was much quicker than that at Port Elizabeth, with Crawley showing he was able to leave on length in the fourth over, a ball from Philander not pitching much away from where Rabada bowled Root at PE, jagged back sharply at Crawley, but it comfortably hit him in the thigh pad. He swapped ends after 11 overs, having Sibley caught in the gully with his second ball, only for the umpire to call it a no-ball. Showing he still has abundant intelligence and skill, Philander dropped his bowling arm to extract more swing, with the pitch not offering much in the way of lateral movement.

Both teams left out their front line spinners for this match. A big call from both camps, as Dominic Bess spun England to a huge first innings lead in the last match, allowing captain Root to enforce the follow on and push onto the win with the weather threatening to save South Africa. Keshav Maharaj has arguably been the pick of the bowlers in this series for South Africa, with his control leaving him poorly rewarded with only 10 wickets in the series. Both teams replaced their spinner for more rounded players, England going with bowling all-rounder Chris Woakes and South Africa going for Dwaine Pretorius, who didn’t show much in the first two tests. England had to leave out Jofra Archer today, having not completely recovered from a nagging elbow injury, this gave Mark Wood his first back-to-back test match since 2017.

Crawley looked comfortable early on, happy to put away any bad balls. He drove with real conviction and not much foot movement, a sign of the trueness of the Jo’Berg pitch and the great reach from a man who is one half of the tallest opening batting partnership England has ever had. Sibley started with his usual stoicism, except for the reprieve of being caught on a no ball, he learned from his mistake of going at the rising ball with an angled bat to punching Philander with a much straighter blade two overs later. England finished a fluent first hour at 50-0, with little offering for the South African bowling attack. Nortje had a very short two over spell, having got it wrong over-correcting back and forth from his initial stray onto Crawley’s pads first ball. Nortje has been unlucky to average over 40 with the ball in his debut series but the lack of control is an indictment of the slim pickings available. By April, I’m sure new Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith will be left frustrating seeing Kyle Abbott, Duanne Olivier and Vernon Philander pulling on the whites for English county sides. The situation of a lessening field of fast bowlers to pick from is not helped by the suspension of Kagiso Rabada, South Africa really missed his potency and aggression in the first session.

This team is in a period of rebuilding, they are currently looking to their past to propel them back to a time of impressive and imposing cricket teams, with their batting fragile and their bowling lack serious penetration. For this match they left out the hapless Zubayr Hamza in place of Temba Bavuma. Such replacement doesn’t bring excitement or intrigue, with Bavuma having already played 39 tests with a decidedly average batting average of 31. The state of this team summed up, when Faf Du Plessis left the field of play and Bavuma was stand in captain, someone who couldn’t get into the team in the first three matches of this series, oddly stood next Dean Elgar at second slip who has 23 tests and 3 years on Bavuma.

Crawley brought up his maiden 50 with a single to the deep cover sweeper, to bring it up off 80 balls with 9 boundaries, much quicker than most England have seen in a while. He was surprisingly struck on the head by a Nortje bouncer whilst on 56, the bowler finally using his height and pace in an enforcing role. The ball hit Crawley flush on the front of the helmet, and a lengthy delay ensued when the concussion protocol took place. England finished the session at 100-0, their first century opening partnership since December 2016 in Chennai, although England did end up all out for 207.

After a quick break, South Africa restarted with Hendricks and Paterson, the pick of the afternoon’s bowlers. Hendricks got Sibley (44) in the third over after the restart, strangling him down the legside from round the wicket. For someone who gets so side on to the ball, it looks an area Sibley may struggle with as he can’t access the ball easily on his hip, this the same way he was out in PE, although with the ball coming off the face on a slower pitch. Crawley looked much less sure of his game since getting hit, proven by his dismissal not long after for 66. He was caught trying to drag his bat inside a ball away from his body to Philander, who was starting his eighth over and third spell. Apart from pulling strongly through mid wicket for four, he looked rattled from the Nortje delivery before the break. The talent he has should leave England fans with a lot of excitement looking forward.

The Sibley wicket brought in Joe Denly, and after reaching 25 off 100 balls in PE, he came out at a frantic pace. He was dropped by Pieter Malan at point having flashed at a wide full ball, which the opener almost stuck, at full stretch parallel to the ground. He got to 25 off just 30 balls this time, but it was far from fluent, well timed drives were met with streaky edges off either side of the bat, running to the fine leg and third man boundaries. He was finally held by Van Der Dussan off Paterson for 27, to bring to an end a twitchy and out of character innings. Stokes was removed by Nortje for 2, a full ball was his undoing after pushing with no foot movement at all, leaving England 157-4. He then seemed to have a strange confrontation with a fan, where a volley of abuse was served as he was about to enter the hallowed tunnel.

Play was called due to bad light, with England on 192-4, Root and Pope steering England to the close of play without worry. Tomorrow will be an interesting days play, South Africa know that if they break this partnership, they will be happy to get Buttler to the crease early whilst he is in no form at all.