Cape Town — The Proteas showed England there is more than one way to be successful at Test cricket in an absorbing afternoon session on the second day at Lord’s.
The visitors played a traditional brand of the longest format, where they concentrated hard, left balls on merit, and struck boundaries when the opposition bowlers erred in line or length.
It’s the way Test cricket has been played for over 100 years, and would most likely have been applauded in silence by the MCC members sitting in the Lord’s pavilion.
Proteas captain Dean Elgar was the first wicket to fall in the session, and rather unfortunately too, as a James Anderson delivery ricocheted off his elbow before trickling onto the stumps and dislodging the bails.
Elgar departed for 47, but not before he and Sarel Erwee had compiled 85 runs for the first Proteas wicket in just 22.3 overs. Their opening stand blunted any hope England had of any early breakthroughs.
Erwee had been fortunate prior to the lunch interval when he was dropped by Zak Crawley in the slip cordon, but it was, admittedly, a rather tough chance.
The strong-built KwaZulu-Natal left-hander put it the error behind him as he worked towards a solid half-century off 89 balls. It was an innings that was punctuated by straight drives down the ground interspersed with deft flicks off the pads to the boundary.
Keegan Petersen had a rather more testing time against Anderson, in particular, with the England veteran giving the rookie No 3 a solid working over of his technique outside the off stump.
And he eventually succumbed to Matthew Potts when the lanky England seamer found the outside edge that was comfortably taken by Jonny Bairstow at slip. Petersen departed for 24.
Aiden Markram has since joined Erwee, striking three crisp boundaries, and will look to continue enjoying another lease of life in Test cricket.
Earlier, Kagiso Rabada was, of course, the leader of the Proteas attack in the morning when he claimed a brilliant 5/52 to get his name etched onto the Lord’s Honours board.
Scorecard
England: 165 all out (Pope 73, Rabada 5/52, Nortje 3/63, Jansen 2/30)
South Africa: 158/2 (Elgar 47, Erwee 60*, Petersen 24)
IOL Sport