24 January 2020
4th Test, Day 1: England 192 for 4
After two days of glorious sunshine on the high veld of Gauteng (“place of gold”), it was somehow inevitable that the opening day of the 4th Test would see the arrival of yet more wet and gloomy weather. This delayed the toss - and selection of teams - until 1pm local time, enough time for Jofra Archer to aggravate his elbow injury in the warm-up and make way for Chris Woakes. Both sides decided to jettison their premier spinners, Dom Bess and Keshav Maharaj, despite their respective five wicket returns at Port Elizabeth - astonishing really, but an early indication that the Wanderers traditionally serves up a totally different set of conditions.
Equally surprising (or not) was Faf du Plessis’ seventh successive loss of the toss - this despite an admirable technique change of throwing the coin onto the pitch in mock disgust. Despite his best efforts, he remains three short of the all-time record of 10 successive losses held by Nasser Hussain. Unsurprisingly, Joe Root chose to bat first - and was rewarded with the first century partnership by an England opening pair since 2016. Zak Crawley was the standout performer with an assured maiden Test half century full of attractive drives and pulls, while Dom Sibley did Dom Sibley things at the other end, albeit riding his luck at times as England reached 100 for 0 from 30 overs up to the tea interval.
Very noticeable from our elevated viewpoint were the much faster pitch and higher bounce compared to the moribund St. George’s Park. Partly attributed to the thinner air at the high altitude in Johannesburg (which lies just over 5,000 feet above sea level), this is renowned as a track which favours the quicker bowlers. England’s batsmen were peppered with rising balls that moved too much to find an edge or struck them much too high up to gain an LBW decision. Crawley was also struck on the helmet and needed a lengthy break for medical assessment, while later in the day Ollie Pope avoided a similar blow only by throwing himself to the floor at the last minute. Yet, despite valiant efforts from debutant Beuran Hendricks and Dane Paterson (second test), South Africa’s more experienced bowlers were largely profligate in the first session and handed a crucial early advantage to the visitors.
This changed rapidly in the final session, as South Africa’s seamers upped their game to induce a mini-collapse of four wickets for only 50 runs. After the openers fell in quick succession, Joe Denly found himself under pressure to dispel criticism of two aspects of his recent England record - namely, his safety-first approach, especially in facing his first 100 balls of an innings, and his relatively poor track record in converting decent starts to more substantial scores. His response here was frenetic and chaotic, mixing up some fine drives with various lucky escapes as he sought to take the game to the bowlers. Sadly for Joe, his good fortune wasn’t to last long as he could only add 27 to his growing portfolio of such scores.
The greater shock - and success for South Africa - was the quick dismissal of Ben Stokes, diligent century-maker in Port Elizabeth but offering a loose drive here before he had played himself in. TV viewers were apparently privy to some choice language from the nation’s hero, but high up in the stand we were completely oblivious to this - not least due to the rich entertainment of an Ali G styled picnic unfolding right in front of us. After such a great start, this left England in a spot of bother at 157 for 4 but Joe Root and Ollie Pope batted tidily to take the score to 192 for 4 when bad light brought an end to proceedings in the 55th over, a lot more cricket than we could reasonably have expected to see when arriving at the ground this morning.
This game appears finely poised after a laudable fightback by South Africa’s bowlers after tea. The first session tomorrow (at whatever time this is, given the forecast of possible further rain) will decide if England, with Root and Pope in confident form and some decent batting still to come, will pull away as they did in Port Elizabeth, or if the home bowlers can make some early inroads to dismiss England for around 250-270. My feeling is that any total above 300 will be very useful on this wicket, which will always offer something to the bowlers and is predicted to deteriorate as the match goes on. Once again, winning the toss and putting runs on the board should very much put England in the driving seat in this match.