16 January 2020
3rd Test, Day 1: England 224 for 4
At last, totally uncalled for and never lamented in its absence, Burton’s Barmy Blog returns after an interval of nine years.
An hour before the end of play, I decided I had my strap-line - “a curate’s egg of a batting performance by England”. Then I realised I actually had no idea what this expression actually meant, other than it seemed to sum up perfectly what had unfolded - very slowly - in front of a patient audience for most of today.
After some brief research, the consensus seems to be that a modern-day curate’s egg is, simply, something that is partly good and partly bad. (Though the original meaning, supposed to originate from a late 19th century cartoon in Punch, was something that is actually bad but is declared good - in that case by a curate who was served up a rotten egg by his boss, the local bishop, but did not wish to offend by saying so, as he was presumably eyeing his next promotion.)
Indeed, I spent the first three and a half hours of today trying to persuade my fellow spectators - and myself - of all that was good in England’s batting performance:
Another 50 partnership for the opening wicket
Dom Sibley building steadily but surely on his century at Cape Town with another assured knock
Zak Crawley resisting further temptation after a couple of early scares to grind out a resolute 44
How wonderful to see two Kent players batting together for England again (possibly for the first time since 1981)
The two Joes - Denly and Root - surviving a torrid time under examination by Rabada and Maharaj.
Yet, in the remaining 30 minutes up to tea, it became harder and harder to escape the feeling that I was on the wrong side of the argument and maybe the Punch definition was right after all. A veteran Barmy Army supporter from Yorkshire appeared wholly convinced that the curate’s egg was not only rotten, but“complete shite”. Soon after lunch, I had also set my stall out and predicted a score of 140-150 by the next interval, so was feeling a little let down myself at our boys’ paltry return of 118 for 2 off 58 overs - as low a total as I can ever remember at this point on day one without a team being bowled out. Between lunch and tea, the run-rate was just 1.8 per over, mmm.
A couple more calamities struck soon after tea and, at 148 for 4, England were once more confronted with an under-achieving first innings score, despite Joe Root winning yet another toss and choosing first use of a slow, flat wicket. The scorecard also bore a worrying resemblance to so many first innings of recent memory - all top four batsmen had a start, looked pretty comfortable in the main, but none went on to reach fifty, let alone a hundred. For this, credit must also go to the South African bowlers - but less so to their captain Faf du Plessis. Not only is Faf a useless tosser (ahem, of a coin, OF A COIN - it was his sixth loss in a row) but his decision to give the first new ball to the pedestrian Philander and Paterson, rather than the much quicker Rabada and Nortje, was just bizarre. Seeing a ‘keeper standing up to the stumps in the first ten overs on day one of a Test is a first for me.
Faf later compounded his error at the second new ball by ignoring Rabada’s conspicuous warming up exercises and handing the ball - again - to Vernon Philander, who continued to be economical but unthreatening. Field placings from early on were sometimes canny but always ultra-defensive, the seamers bowling wicket-to-wicket with five fielders on the leg-side, including two on the boundary.
The pick of the bowlers - maybe surprisingly after being flayed to all parts at Cape Town - was the wily Keshav Maharaj, whose first 20 or so overs went for only a run an over while he deservedly won an LBW decision on review against Denly and came within a whisker of repeating the trick on Ben Stokes. At the other end, Kagiso Rabada was - well, Kagiso Rabada, a supreme fast bowler and aggressive with it. His ball to dismiss Root, who had looked untroubled on his way to 27, cannoned ferociously into the stumps in the blink of an eyelid, yet it seemed Rabada was already celebrating right in Root’s face. Superb, attritional Test cricket.
In the final hour, England’s day was saved from its curate’s egg fate by sensible batting from Ben Stokes, newly but unsurprisingly anointed as World Cricketer of 2019, and Ollie Pope. Everyone loves the swashbuckling Stokes of course, but I do also admire one of his unsung (or at least lesser sung) abilities - that of dropping anchor for the team when needed and playing an old-fashioned Test innings, in this case 38 not out in just over two hours and 86 balls. At the other end, Pope never looked in any trouble at all, playing his way calmly to 39 not out with seven sublime boundaries - this lad can bat. Both will hope to “go big” when play resumes tomorrow, with Jos Buttler also champing at the bit for a decent score.
In big picture terms, England needed to show today that victory in Cape Town was not just a flash in the pan, another false dawn of many in the last years. In particular, this young team needed to prove - mainly to themselves - that they have the technique and belief to post a big score in the first innings. Their approach was methodical, often laboured, sometimes too slow even for their ever-patient travelling support. In mid-afternoon, it looked like a case of “same old, same old”. But there was something about today I liked and admired - it was never easy out there, nor should it be at this level, but each and every batsman was determined to graft, particularly the youngsters. Who knows, maybe the psychological barrier of an England first innings 300 will finally be breached sometime before lunch tomorrow.
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