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Rain emerged as a critical ally in South Africa’s efforts to head to the fourth and final test against England in Johannesburg with the series score still locked on one-all in Port Elizabeth yesterday.
At stumps on day three, the Proteas were 208/6 in their first innings, with wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock (63 from 134 balls, nine fours) and all-rounder Vernon Philander (27 off 55 balls, five boundaries) the not-out batsmen with the hosts needing another 92 runs to make the visitors – whose first innings was declared on 499/9 – bat again.
With England captain Joe Root’s men firmly in the driving seat after a combination of a slow wicket, indifferent bowling by the South Africans on day two and patient centuries by Ollie Pope (135 not out for a maiden test century) and Ben Stokes (who else? 120), inclement weather did its bit in the hosts’ favour by cutting proceedings short on day three.
The two sides took early lunch at 11.48am and only got back to the pitch at 3.26pm. But it wasn’t before young off-spinner Dom Bess had taken all five of the Proteas’ first innings wickets – the 22-year-old’s maiden five-for – as they went to lunch on 113/5.
The Proteas’ top order’s handling of Bess’ bowling (5/51 from 31 overs at stumps) suggested he was twirling ticking time bombs and skipper Faf du Plessis’ eight from six balls didn’t help alleviate the pressure on him needing to make runs. But once they came back on in the afternoon, the hosts looked untroubled, with De Kock and night watchman Anrich Nortje holding the fort in the floodlit gloom of St George’s Park.
Nortje’s three-hour-plus vigil of 18 from 136 balls ended when he guided an edge to Root at slip off Stokes, but De Kock seemed to be batting on a different wicket to the rest, his scorecard glittering with some lovely straight drives off the quicker men.
But the keeper’s innings – which yielded a useful and unbeaten 54-run partnership with the purveyor of booming cover drives, Philander – ran into trouble against the slower men, as evidenced by his being dropped three times by the five-catch hero from Cape Town, Stoke off Root (twice) and Joe Denly at slip.
Should a combination of their day-three fight and rain forecast (65% today and 75% tomorrow) somehow buy the Proteas enough time to head to the Wanderers with the series still tied, they’ll have to do it without the services of fast bowler Kagiso Rabada.
As reported from day two, the Proteas’ spearhead, who is supposedly out of sorts but leads the wicket-taking charts in the series with 14 – was adjudged to have run afoul of the ICC’s limp-wristed regulations in his celebration of his cleaning up England captain Root with a pearler of a delivery.
While the reaction may have come from the frustration of not being given the new ball in favour of innocuous debutant Dane Paterson, toiling in the Port Elizabeth heat and taking a wicket with a no-ball, the irony is that the Proteas will now probably rely on Paterson as Rabada’s replacement in what they hope will be the decider. – City Press correspondent
