South Africa's bowlers poured a bucket of cold water on England’s hopes of picking up where they left off six weeks ago.
The red hot form of their batters, scorching the ball along the bone dry turf to the boundary time and again was but a distant memory as they struggled to cope with bowler friendly conditions under heavy skies.
Reduced to 55-4 and then 116-6 when the heavens finally opened to curtail the day after just 32 overs, England found themselves in the eye of their own storm. Already they will need something special over the next day or two to even up the contest and wrestle the momentum back from South Africa. Of course they have done that before.
