South Africa v England, 2nd Test, Cape Town, 3-7 January, 2020

...and Oz would have enforced the follow on

embee wrote:...and Oz would have enforced the follow on

Spot on.

[Crappelli storms out of the room, arms in the air]

Faf another one who gets a total pass while averaging less than 30 over the last 2 years. Afrikaan way.

Yarps give up the chase. Now just trying to hang on.

They gave up in the team meeting this morning.

Weak.as.piss.

8 runs off the last 10 overs.

Only 40 overs to survive, and still 5 wickets left. Good determination in the batting, from the keeper (more Cook-ip than Cock-up) and "Dirty" Dussen. Not a whole lot of penetration in the bowling, though. England seem dependent on the odd hop or dip.

Forty overs for sure? Thought there might have been as many as 45 to go ...

Watching this at the moment. The barmy army have been droning on. Obviously they have had too many cans.


yarps five down at tea... sleep calls

One session to survive, 5 wickets, too many runs.

Another day 5 'down to the wire' tense finish, would have been a boring draw if the game were to have finished yesterday ... don't feck it up, ICC.

You've gotta wonder what sort of drugs the ICC are snorting with regard to their "4 day Tests" posturing.

Indian ones.

And Stokes pulls another one out of the hat. Anyone’s series now... the Yarps had the draw there for the taking with Inter battling hard, but a Kock up exposed the tail to England’s miracle worker. So 1-1, and an Eng-SA series will go down to the final match in some way or other, as is the tradition.

Jimmy injured again, that’s the only down side. Archer set to come back in for him.

Some decent catching as well, which is good to see.

Well done by England and its talisman thug.

The Yarps made a good fight of it. Again their skipper disappointed. Will the 'good school' old boys running the team have a word in Faff's ear.

I was wondering who would make way for the returning Archer (whose injury solved the selection dilemma I mentioned before the match), come the Third Test. But it seems Jimmy is about to take his place once again on the England Injury Rota Roster. For a while, holding his side, it looked as if Stokes would be first to bow out.

Jim now seems to have entered the Death Cycle of ever-shorter comebacks - in the way also Dale Steyn's new dawns became shorter and shorter, until eventually non-existent. Well, neither owe their team anything - or if you think in patriotic terms, their country - after a long and distinguished career taking on that most thankless of all cricket roles.


No doubt a few of South Africa's batsmen - including the best of them - will rue a terrible shot that suddenly got them out and put their team right back into difficulty, also giving their opponents such a shot in the arm. When they otherwise hung on so resolutely for what was it, about 140 overs? But that's what constant pressure generally does. It's what makes "great escapes" so rare in cricket. You need nerves & concentration of steel, luck, and virtually zero error over a long stretch.

I don't think the South Africa team should be too downhearted after that effort, though in the immediate gloom of a defeat when so close to a draw, it's always an exhausting downer.


For England, the biggest gain apart from well, a win is surely the experience of actually putting a decent, assiduously applied second innings of a match together for once, like a proper top Test side. Who knows if Pope (his second innings, batting down at Number 7 straight after the Lord Mayor's show, was irrelevant -  his first innings was crucial) and Sibley will kick on from here? They have put themselves in some sort of a frame, where England have been giving impressions of fleeting pictures for too long.


Root had a good match, even as captain. To be fair (it's been easy not to be, when England have been all over the place), it must be a bastard going into bat at 10-2 or thereabouts almost every single time. And similarly, where his captaincy has been cruelly exposed, it's not least because he has been in charge of a herd of cats. He fared okay - not fantastically*, but okay - with both bat and head in this Test. Which is easier to do if there is some substance and oomph in various parts of your team.

*One failing that stood out: Right or wrong, Root clearly has faith in the reliability of Bess, where he has little in other twirlers. Perhaps gained from the Somerset Spinner #2's loan spell with the Yorkies last season? It feels a bit like a personal backing, a personal hunch. But today, he stayed with Bess a bit too long surely, into 25 overs, 20 overs, 15 overs to go. Where Curran, very much strike bowler not stock bowler, would have been a far more obvious choice, slanting it across and past nervous batsmen. Yes, I know the pitch was taking spin here and there, not everywhere, but DB does not (yet at least) seem a breakthrough bowler, more an honest, economical, nagging one. Anyway, just one example.


Stokes sometimes seems more a Sheer Force of Will than a human being. Amazing what he can do.


Where all this leaves the series, I've no idea. Yes, I know at the moment it's more Birmingham City v Stoke City than a Manchester derby (I'm not sure anyone in world cricket is at the "Liverpool FC" level just now), but all the frailities, shortcomings & potential skills only add to the excitement of this series.

And yes, as Basil notes, some keen, clean and accurate catching!

Well done England,

I sat through the middle session as Root tried Denly and Bess to get through van der Dussen and de Kock. It seems Denly finally succeeded after Tea.

Then, after Broad removed van der Dussen with the leg trap, it was the Ben Stokes show.

Cracking stuff. Yet more advertisement for the folly of talk of 4 day Tests.

At only 2 down, I was disappointed to see that SAf had decided overnight that the asking rate of 3 an over was too much on the last day. No effort was made for a historic chase. And yet Faf threw his wicket away with an attacking shot. Very odd.

No comments from the miserable troll I see.

Closer than we all thought in the end.

Maybe it came down to the toss of the coin again, though Root farked up in Centurion.

Faf a concern but captains always get more time to return to form.

Faf will probably hang up the boots sometime this year anyway.

It's not as if anyone is banging down the door. Rudi Second as been mentioned.

It was the slowest half ton of QDK's career with the barmy army singing, "Get de Kock out for the lads" in the background.

His patience finally ran out.

Rassie is one to put up an anchor though.

Anderson lame again, maybe the end for him.

Wow, how shit will the SAffer top 6 look with Faf?

They'll be increasingly needing to rely on their talented keeper's batting and the tail (also weakened with Vernie's retirement).

Malan looks okay. He seems to have a decent technique and is up for the fight.

What’s happened to Markham?

JGK wrote:What’s happened to Markham?

Broken finger or thumb requiring surgery I think.