Oval and out (nearly)

One of the risks inherent in blogging is your words coming back to haunt you. The Ancient Greeks called in hubris, but I prefer to think of it as invoking the spirit of Shane Watson, for rather like Watson it was not so much that many of my pronouncements were proven to be wrong, rather that they were never given a chance to be proven at all. It may well be that keeping wicket will have a negative impact on AB De Villiers’ batting and there is no doubt that it is a long tail, but if you make 637-2 then such matters are a mere trifle.

The historic failure of South African batsmen to make test triple centuries has long been a statistical anomaly, but anyone watching the early stages of Hashim Amla’s innings on Friday afternoon could have been forgiven for thinking that it was an anomaly that would remain in place for some time. After the rain, however,he batted with an assurance and range of shot that was delightful to watch - by any reckoning this was a fantastic innings. He stands with his feet closer together than almost any modern batsman with a long backwards trigger movement and a flourish of the bat in the backswing that is no longer as exaggerated as at the start of his career, when he resembled a majorette as much as an international batsman, but which still gives his technique a dash of individuality and flair and from which he scores all around the wicket. Of all the batsmen in test cricket at the moment he is among the easiest on the eye.

No one could ever accuse Graeme Smith of being enjoyable to watch, but there is no doubting his effectiveness and sheer bloody mindedness.  I once sat through a long partnership between Smith and Gary Kirsten that was like watching ugly paint dry and which drove large numbers to the bar, but there was a sense of inevitability about his hundred here. If ever there was a man who made the most of limited talented it is Smith and he should be applauded for it. As for Jacques Kallis here, truly, is a great cricketer. There is little joie de vivre about anything that he does on the cricket field, which may be why he is so consistently underrated, but his test record is up there with Sobers as the greatest all rounder of all time, although there’s no doubt as to which would make a better companion for a night out.

As for England, this was a truly horrible few days, especially after having controlled the first day so convincingly. They will re-group and come back, for they are a resilient group, but I fear that all is lost for this test. For every Cardiff or Centurion there is a Perth or Abu Dhabi and it is hard to see how they can escape today. This further shows the stupidity of scheduling just a three test series: if there were five tests then this would be a mouth watering opening act to go along with Cardiff in 2009 or Lord’s in 2005, but instead it is a massive step towards winning the series for a South African side who for three days have played cricket as good and remorseless as I have seen for a very long time.