CRICKET FIRST TEST:WE MUST turn the clock back almost five years, to the Centurion Test on England's last visit here, to find the last time that Jacques Kallis took them for a century. England have pretty much had his measure since then, until yesterday. With the calm efficiency that has characterised his career, and unencumbered by the after-effects of the fractured rib that threatened to rule him out, the master batsman scored his 32nd Test century (only Tendulkar, Ponting, Gavaskar and Lara have more) and placed South Africa, put in to bat by Andrew Strauss, in a comfortable position at the end of the first day.
Kallis edged his first ball from Graham Onions through the slips to the boundary, not catchable but a tentative stroke, and once during the same passage, played and missed at the same bowler. The boundary which brought up his sixth hundred against England, a mistimed hook in the air from Stuart Broad that just eluded Onions at fine-leg, was also fortuitous.
That apart, peccadilloes rather than transgressions, Kallis gave a flawless display, a high-class technical innings, and will resume this morning on 112. Thus far he has hit 14 boundaries and a six clubbed away during an early attempt at establishing mastery over Graeme Swann.
England flagged raggedly in the final session as Kallis and JP Duminy snatched back the initiative that England had claimed with their fourth wicket, that of AB de Villiers on the stroke of tea with the score only 159. At that juncture, England had just about given value for Strauss’s decision to bowl first, based on the green tinge to the pitch that had spent some days under cover and the assumption of residual moisture, rather than overhead conditions, which promised a cracking day.
In his first over, Broad had dismissed Graeme Smith without scoring, just as Matthew Hoggard had done in Port Elizabeth at the start of that last tour and a good omen. By lunch Hashim Amla had gone to Onions, while Swann, who bowled from one end for most of the afternoon until the second new ball became available, claimed Ashwell Prince with his second delivery and De Villiers for good measure.
England creaked thereafter. Onions had spent some time off the field with a strained right calf muscle and with James Anderson below his best and with Ian Bell playing rather than an all-rounder, Strauss was forced to fiddle through some innocuous overs from Paul Collingwood and even Jonathan Trott.
The absence of Luke Wright will be regarded by some as a blunder, although this presupposes that he would have made a difference as a bowler with an extremely modest record and misses the point that it is unwise to judge such things until the wider context is known: Bell might yet serve them well with the bat in a difficult situation.
But England’s fielding was scrappy as the heat took its toll, and it is from inspiration from their team-mates that bowlers draw strength at the end of long hard days. Kallis and Duminy (38 not out) survived nine overs with the second new ball, delivered by Broad and Anderson, and with a fifth-wicket stand so far worth 103 have taken South Africa to 262 for four. England know, however, that with an early breakthrough this morning they could be in to the tail.
They can further take heart from the fact that although there was some substantial bounce with the new ball, it was what cricketers term tennis ball bounce. Essentially, once the hardness has gone from the ball, this is an easy-paced pitch that will get easier still, although there may be turn later.
The South Africans, though, and in particular the anguished player in question, will have been mightily disappointed that Dale Steyn, their main strike bowler, and one whose ferocious skiddiness can counteract the slowness of the bounce, failed a fitness test and was substituted, in what they consider a like-for-like replacement, by Friedel de Wet.
England were a wicket shy of full justification for the decision to bowl first. Smith’s dismissal was a bonus as he flicked at a shortish leg-side delivery, although as he tends to go a long way across to cover his off stump, and therefore tends to play away from his body on the leg side. This is a legitimate, if occasional, line of attack, which the Australians, for example, used to employ against David Gower. Yet all three seamers were seduced by the bounce and too often ignored a fuller length.
Nor is there often any subtlety in the way in which length is varied. The ball swung for Broad, if not Anderson, and Onions nipped the ball around sufficiently disconcertingly to have several confident lbw shouts. One of them – against Prince – was upheld by Steve Davis only to be overturned, correctly, after the batsman appealed: it was too high.
But in such conditions, boundaries square of the wicket, played with the cross-bat shots – cut and pull – should be the exception rather than the norm. Onions, who bowls wicket-to-wicket, in particular, fields set straight accordingly to protect runs and to ask the batsman to attempt to play squarer than he might like. With the Kookaburra ball on abrasive pitches and outfields, there is no second chance.
