England won the toss and Joe Root elected to bat first in what turned out to be a very sluggish day’s play at Port Elizabeth.
Dom Sibley looked like he was set to continue his good form from the previous match. A strange decision to open the bowling with debutant, Dane Paterson instead of Kagiso Rabada didn’t pay off as Sibley built a strong opening partnership with his fellow inexperienced opener Zac Crawley. Excellent captaincy either side of lunch from Faf du Plessis led to the dismissal of Sibley followed shortly by Crawley with both dismissals coming in a similar fashion. Fielding six men on the leg side, both openers were caught glancing straight deliveries with Rassie Van de Dussen taking an absolute blinder for Crawley’s wicket.
Joe Denley once again built the foundations of what could have been an impressive innings. He drove an excellent Ian Bell-esque cover drive to the boundary to get off the mark, but fell for 25, caught lbw by the impressive left-arm off-spinner, Keshav Maharaj. Prior to the game Faf du Plessis spoke about the importance of having a competent spin attack at St George’s Oval and this was certainly paying off. England found it difficult to score as the wicket was incredibly slow and with an ever-softening Kookaburra ball, the run rate during the second session fell below 2 runs per over.
Joe Root misjudged the bounce of a wicked Kagiso Rabada delivery, which clattered into his off stump. This left England in a perilous position at 148/4, when considering the average first innings total at St George’s Oval is around 380.
Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope brought some stability to England’s innings as they built a strong partnership and ended the day on 224/4. Pope in particular looked technically sound and overall very impressive. The young batsman scored some splendid boundaries which helped to increase England’s run rate after tea to above 3. After a good performance in the second Test, Pope seems to be building a strong case to bat higher up the order especially as Denly is struggling to bat convincingly at 3.
It wasn’t a typical day one at St George’s Oval with the wicket providing variable bounce, a lack of pace and joy for the spinner Maharaj very early on into the Test match. Maharaj in particular was able to spin the ball out of the rough and held down an end for most of the match after lunch. Vernon Philander also kept his bowling characteristically economical on a wicket that offered very little for the seamers.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Pope and Stokes can maintain their good performances tomorrow. Being interviewed after the close of play, Crawley said they are still hopeful of achieving a score in the late 300s and still have the dangerous Jos Buttler and Sam Curran still to come.
Cricket is electric 