South Africa suffered a major blow with Graeme Smith finally deciding his elbow had all done all it could. But the team now had to do without the skipper’s resources at a time when the hosts are in the ascendancy and the visitors, well, not many would back them to bounce back.
Mickey Arthur often touched upon the bounce back ability of the South Africans when they toured India. South Africa did show it during the Test series but have found themselves strangely out of depth in the one day game on this tour. For England and their new skipper Kevin Pietersen, this was a dream start and there would be nothing more delightful than to cap with a series victory.
Smith’s injury would have perhaps been exacerbated by the extent of trauma that must be going through the South African dressing room as the inexplicable slump. Not many of their bowlers are fit to the mark but none seem to be in any sort of bowling form either. Dale Steyn coming back from injury, the Morne brothers forcefully injected and Makahaya Ntini short on form as well, England had a golden opportunity to finish the job at the Oval and though their innings while batting veered from one extreme to the next, it appeared the stand-in skipper Jacques Kallis and his team would have a real battle on their hands.
But South Africa had to perform radically different from they way they did in the first two games in order to stop England from running away with it. But it was not going to be easy. England’s batting seemed to taken confidence from the previous encounter when Ian Bell and Matt Prior opened the batting and also, sealed a famous victory for England. The duo carried off from where they left off at Trent Bridge. A century partnership to England and it seemed South Africa were being batted out.
But the strike did come. Prior’s departure opened a little gaping hole that threatened to become a wounded gash. Four wickets including that of the England skipper and South Africa were beginning to see a ray of hope. At 155 for four, England, it appeared, had thrown the initiative back to the visitors. After Bell’s seventy-three, miniature partnerships down the order ensured England found their way again and testing the visitors. Andrew Flintoff was clearly the glue holding the England innings either and capitalized on a listless South African performance.
Unless their batting suggests otherwise, South Africans are not showing their usual fighting spirit. Flintoff’s spirited knocking resulting in an unbeaten seventy-eight for him and 296 for England should be a tough chase for the so far win-less South Africans in this series. Fans will hope it is a close one, one way or the other!308384