Cricket/South Africa v England, third Test: It still might take some brisk batting and special bowling to do it but, after two days, the third Test is South Africa's for the winning.
England were embattled last evening, gasping under a stranglehold exerted by parsimonious and productive seam bowling from Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini and, on his debut, Charl Langeveldt, who bowled bravely despite a left hand broken while batting.
A follow-on is not out of the question. Ntini, an inspirational maverick, managed a couple of wickets and the others one apiece as England, in losing four for 43 in the last 15 overs, clawed their way to a precarious 95 for four at the close, in reply to South Africa's 441.
The only resistance came, almost inevitably, from Andrew Strauss. With the close barely two minutes away, though, the opener drove vigorously at a wide ball from Ntini better left alone and dragged it on to his stumps. He departed in disgust, let down by an uncharacteristic lack of concentration and resulting impetuosity.
He has left the innings exposed with two new batsmen, Graham Thorpe and the nightwatchman Matthew Hoggard, at the crease and it will not be an easy ride this morning.
As the shadows lengthened there had been some turn and bounce out of the bowlers' rough for the left-arm spinner Nicky Boje to add to the tribulations, and he could usefully block one end today.
England are being let down in particular by their first-innings batting, with Marcus Trescothick being suckered into spanking a short ball to point immediately after being beaten by a similar one immediately before, Robert Key late on a hook having been beaten outside off stump, and Michael Vaughan, who has been in indifferent form all through this tour, edging a gentle away swinger to give Langeveldt a maiden Test wicket.
Strauss has been a phenomenon since his debut seven months ago. On the way to 45 yesterday he passed 1,000 runs in his brief Test career when he pulled Pollock to the square-leg boundary.
The applause from the packed ground was delayed but generous, although most may not have understood the scale of his achievement. This was his 19th innings and of Englishmen, only Herbert Sutcliffe (12), Len Hutton (16) and Wally Hammond (18) have passed the mark in fewer. That is some company.
The wickets sealed a dominant day for South Africa, one of their best - if not the best - of the series. From 247 for four overnight they had lost an early wicket, that of Hashim Amla, unluckily lbw to the second new ball, only seven overs old at the start.
But contributions down the order saw the last three wickets add 128, and there was, with the certainty that the sun will set once more over Table Mountain today, a 19th Test century from Jacques Kallis, his seventh in nine matches in this country and his fourth on this, his provincial ground. Be it humble or otherwise, there really is no place like home for him.
Yet this was not an innings that burst into life like his superb effort in Durban.
But survive he did, eventually clipping a ball from Simon Jones off his legs to move to three figures. It had taken him more than five hours, though, almost as long as he batted in total in Durban for his 162, and if it contained 10 boundaries he was to hit only one more in moving to 149 before Andy Flintoff, the most successful of the England bowlers, found his edge.
