England’s batters came face to face with South Africa’s pace and fire and wilted in the heat.
Anrich Nortje turned up the dial to 95 miles per hour in a blistering spell of high octane pace bowling, and it ripped the heart out of England’s line-up and hurried the game to a conclusion.
Being beaten by an innings and 12 runs inside three days is as humbling as it gets, but it is even worse than that when you consider two thirds of day one was wiped out by rain. This is a two-day beating in everything but name and has put the hardest of brakes on the Ben Stokes/Brendon McCullum era after a quartet of early success.
Bowled out for 149 in their second innings in response to South Africa’s eventual 326, this was a dismal performance by England’s batters second time round in perfectly reasonable conditions. But they either miscalculated against Keshav Maharaj’s spin to begin with, or found Nortje too hot to handle off his long run.
And even though this is the first defeat under Stokes and McCullum’s leadership, it had very little if anything to do with the style of cricket they have tried to play. There was no ‘Bazball’ because England were utterly outplayed by South Africa who were strongest in their bowling attack, but dominant across every department.
Zak Crawley somehow managed to survive the opening burst from Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi, but when Maharaj was introduced his attempted sweep was way off the mark and left him plumb lbw. Ollie Pope followed, misjudging the length and line from Maharaj to pinned on the back foot, before Joe Root nibbled at Ngidi and edged to fall cheaply a second time in the match.
At 57-3, Jonny Bairstow and Alex Lees had to dig in and find a way to absorb the pressure and then try to counter. Easier said than done when things click for Nortje.
The ball before his dismissal flew through to the keeper at 95 miles per hour, then the one that took the edge was clocked at 91 mph with Bairstow’s feet rooted to the ground. Neither Lees nor Ben Foakes could keep out the pace and at 86-6 the game was as good as up, even with a bit of slogging from Broad to come.
South Africa were good on their promise to avoid cricket of the ‘soft-natured’ variety instead delivering on the strong, smart cricket that their skipper Dean Elgar had demanded. It might have been a good toss to win on day one, but over the next two days there was no let up in the Proteas' performance from the flying start their bowlers gave them.
England were second best in thought and deed from start to finish, even coughing up an extra 37 runs on day three by frankly wasting the second new ball with bouncers. There is much to think on and improve on.
