CRICKET/Second Test: If England could find solace from the first day of the second Test here, it came in the evening from Steve Harmison
Earlier their batting capitulated in little more than two sessions. Then Harmison roused himself from the torpor of Port Elizabeth, cranked his speed into the rarefied atmosphere that only the super-quicks inhabit and dismissed Graeme Smith, caught at slip, following by getting Jacques Rudolph with the day's last delivery, taken one-handed by Graham Thorpe at short- leg.
It kept his side in a game that had threatened to run away from them and was Harmison's 64th wicket of 2004, an England record for a calendar year. In between Matthew Hoggard had shaded a ball back into the dangerous Herschelle Gibbs and clipped the top of off-stump as the batsman declined to play a shot.
Until then it had been dismal. The South African captain, having crossed his fingers and opted to field first, had the touch of an alchemist yesterday, as England were bowled out - not least by inspired, aggressive pace bowling - for 139 inside 58 overs.
Yet, if Shaun Pollock gave a masterclass of control and intelligence to take four for 32, and the young Dale Steyn ruffled a few feathers with some searing pace of his own, then it was another display of ill-discipline by the England batsmen.
Andrew Strauss played with great self-restraint almost until lunch and made 25, which proved to be the top score of the innings, while the Jones boys, Geraint and Simon, in their different ways, flung the bat merrily and also made it into the 20s.
But, on a pitch demanding diligence but which, with the exception of a little uneven bounce, was otherwise blameless, it was generally a sorry procession of England batsmen who made their hangdog way out of the searing heat and back to the dressing room. Patience, it seems, is no longer a virtue in Test match cricket.
If this was not bad enough, there was further sorry news for England; Ashley Giles spent the duration of the South African innings on the physio's table, his back having gone into spasm while ducking and weaving a good old-fashioned roughing-up by Steyn. As it is, if Harmison and Hoggard had brought the game back to England by the close, there is much to do this morning if South Africa are not to establish a dominant position. They will resume on 70 for three, 69 adrift, with Jacques Kallis unbeaten on 13 and the local player Hashim Amla presumably to accompany him.
This was not the sort of performance we have come to expect from an England side unbeaten this year. In Port Elizabeth they managed to win comfortably enough, despite performing significantly below the standards they have set themselves. With that game behind them this one promised more.
Instead they managed to produce their lowest total in 59 matches since their 134 against West Indies at Lord's in 2000 (having bowled first), a match, they will remember, they went on to win.
Historians of the game, too, will point out that on seven previous occasions they have made fewer runs in the opening innings of a match and gone on to victory - but not since 1955, when they conceded a first-innings deficit of 171 to South Africa at Lord's and were subsequently bowled to victory by Brian Statham.
They could be up against it here, although Smith's gamble had to be predicated on the knowledge that the surface had an uneven look to it - a slight ripple rather than corrugation - which could help Harmison and Flintoff in particular in the fourth innings should it get that far.
By lunch the pattern for the day had been established with England precarious at 58 for three. Strauss, watchful outside off-stump had taken 40 minutes to open his account and had only just done so when Marcus Trescothick, faced with Makhaya Ntini bowling round the wicket for the first time, got an inside edge which the new wicketkeeper AB de Villiers did well to catch one-handed.
Mark Butcher followed; undone by Steyn's skiddy pace, he chopped on to his stumps, and then Strauss, having seen Vaughan dropped by the keeper from the third ball of an exploratory over from the left-arm spinner Nicky Boje, drove at a wider ball and failed to get over it, the catch going low to mid-off.
For a while it seemed as if a score below 100 was a distinct possibility as Pollock, whose parsimonious opening spell had conceded five runs from eight overs without reward, changed to the Umgeni end after the interval and began to cash in.
Graham Thorpe was palpably lbw, a textbook dismissal, whereupon Flintoff, shaping to hook, found the ball on him too quickly and looped a top edge to backward square-leg.
Now the adrenalin of Geraint Jones took over and he cut and carved willingly, once rocking back to hook Pollock over square-leg for six. But with fielders set back, such a policy has a short shelf-life and, after Vaughan, stuck on the crease, was lbw to Ntini, Jones hooked the same bowler once too often and was taken at deep square-leg.
Giles's uncomfortable stay, which was punctuated by visits from the physiotherapist and pharmaceutical intake, was ended as he flapped at Steyn and was caught, also on the boundary.
It was left to Simon Jones and Hoggard to put together the biggest stand of the innings, 26, for the ninth wicket
Guardian Service
SOUTH AFRICA V ENGLAND (Durban)
ENGLAND: First Innings
M E Trescothick c de Villiers b Ntini 18
A J Strauss c Ntini b Boje 25
M A Butcher b Steyn 5
M P Vaughan lbw b Ntini 18
G P Thorpe lbw b Pollock 1
A Flintoff c Amla b Pollock 0
G O Jones c Rudolph b Ntini 24
A F Giles c Rudolph b Steyn 10
M J Hoggard not out 6
S P Jones b Pollock 21
S J Harmison b Pollock 0
Extras lb9 nb2 pens 0 11
Total (57.1 overs) ... 139
Fall: 1-21; 2-32; 3-53; 4-62; 5-64; 6-80; 7-93; 8-113; 9-139.
Bowling: Pollock 15.1 7 32 4; Ntini 13 2 41 3; Steyn 13 4 26 2; Kallis 7 4 10 0; Boje 9 2 21 1.
SOUTH AFRICA: First Innings
G C Smith c Flintoff b Harmison 9
H H Gibbs b Hoggard 15
J A Rudolph c Thorpe b Harmison 32
J H Kallis not out 13
Extras nb1 pens 0 1
Total 3 wkts (27.2 overs) ... 70
Fall: 1-17 2-48 3-70.
To Bat: M van Jaarsveld, H M Amla, A B de Villiers, S M Pollock, N Boje, D W Steyn, M Ntini.
Bowling: Hoggard 10 4 27 1; Harmison 7.2 1 20 2; Flintoff 6 1 12 0; S P Jones 4 1 11 0.
