CAPTAIN Alastair Cook led England’s fourth-Test fightback with his first half-century of the series after South Africa ran up 475 on day two in Centurion. However, Ben Stokes fears the tourists will come to rue another day of dropped catches.
Cook has been short of runs despite England’s 2-0 lead but, after Quinton de Kock’s fluent maiden 100 put the Proteas firmly in control, gave the reply some backbone with a steely 67no. A significant personal milestone awaits today if Cook can reach 117 – the magic number that would make him the first Englishman, and 12th batsman ever, to reach 10,000 Test runs.
But he also has a job to do for his side, who are still 337 behind on 138 for two and will have to work hard to remain unbeaten. Joe Root is also in place on 31no but England will be wary of what awaits on a potentially uneven pitch.
Just as Stephen Cook and Hashim Amla took advantage of lapses in the field on day one, De Kock rode his luck all the way to three figures. On 28, he saw Stokes put down a tough one-handed chance at gully and on 90 Cook let one slip at short cover.
Ten runs earlier there was an even worse gaffe when De Kock nicked one at perfect catching height only for wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow and Cook, at first slip, to leave it for each other.
Stokes made no excuses for the mistakes, which had echoes of previous errors in the drawn match at Cape Town. “We’ll look back on this game at the end and realise we let them off the hook massively,” said the Durham all-rounder, who took four for 86. “We were the ones that let them get to the big score that they got. Looking back on it we’ve got to take those chances. In Test cricket good players make you pay and they certainly have done in this innings.”
Bairstow’s travails are particularly in focus at present, poor wicket- keeping having offered South Africa reprieves at important moments in all four Tests.
In this game alone his two drops have cost 117 runs, while he was at least partially at fault for diving in front of Alastair Cook when he grassed Amla on five.
“I know from dropping catches you feel like the whole team’s looking at you, you feel like the whole ground’s looking at you,” said Stokes. “But it’s something you just have to try and get on with. Unfortunately in this innings Jonny didn’t manage to take the chances but on another day he could possibly and it would be a completely different ball game.”
Alex Hales was the first England batsman to fall. Facing a tricky nine-over spell before tea, he made 15 before driving Kagiso Rabada loosely to point. He has now scored under 20 in five of his seven Test innings. Nick Compton was undone lbw by the same bowler on 19 by a ball that kept devilishly low, the first of several that failed to get up as expected.
De Kock missed the last Test with an injury sustained while walking his dogs, but was fit and ready this time, scoring his runs at just faster than a run-per-ball and finishing with 17 fours and two sixes. Moeen Ali suffered at his hand, as De Kock plundered 45 off 24 from the spinner. Most impressive was the way the 23-year-old coaxed partnerships worth 139 for the last three wickets.
When Stuart Broad removed Temba Bavuma early on and James Anderson sent Rabada back for a golden, England appeared to be on a roll. Bowling South Africa out before lunch or for less than 360 appeared realistic aims but De Kock, assisted ably by Kyle Abbott and Dane Piedt, did not allow the innings to fold.
He eventually ran out of partners, thanks to Stokes’ perseverance. Abbott and Morne Morkel were both pinned lbw by the swinging ball with Piedt caught behind.
With Hales departing in regrettable fashion at the start of England’s innings, Cook was left to knuckle down with Compton and they put on 56 in 18 overs until the latter was struck closer to ankle-height than knee.
Cook went past his previous top score of the trip, 43, by sweeping Piedt for four and went past 50 with a punchy drive. Root was more careful than usual but still pierced the infield with a couple of his favoured back-foot drives and safely negotiated a path to stumps.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here