No choice but to go for broke

At the start of play there was a widespread belief that, with a day lost to the weather already, Graeme Smith would declare on South Africa's overnight 247 for 9 and get stuck straight into England's batsmen. As things turned out, their innings lasted just two more balls anyway, but the manner of the final dismissal - Andrew Hall caught slashing aggressively to third man - spoke volumes about their approach. When you are going for broke - which is how South Africa must now play the remainder of this truncated match - it can be a strangely liberating experience.

They are trailing 2-1 in the series and only one result will do so, ironically, South Africa's best chance of victory came in the manner of their first-innings capitulation. Had they strung their performance out to a neither-here-nor-there score of 300 to 350, they would have eaten so far into today's play that England's nervy response would have come too late to register. Instead, South Africa have runs on the board - no matter how few - and, weather permitting, the rest all comes down to desperation.

It was certainly a desperate response from England. Marcus Trescothick's opening salvoes ought to have been the reassurance they needed on a pitch that had displayed fewer demons than anticipated on the first day's play, but when he was needlessly run out, South Africa steamed through the breach. By the close, the match was heading for a single-innings showdown, and that will suit the hell-for-leather South Africans just fine.

A stop-start day was never going to be good for England's concentration, but South Africa made their own luck and took it as well. Robert Key's dismissal was unfortunate, but Michael Vaughan's was plain careless. His first duck of the series was also the first time he had failed to reach double figures and, ironically, it had everything to do with his return to form at The Wanderers, for he was at last fuelled with some long-overdue confidence. At least when he was scratching around like a dog without his bone, he had attempted to get himself in before unfurling his big risk-taking strokes.

South Africa's bowlers were in the proverbial last-chance saloon, and it showed as well. Pollock was just Pollock - like the Rock of Ages, his approach alters for no situation - but the real spark in their attack was Andre Nel. From the moment he entered the fray, he was all "bluster and bullshit", as Mike Atherton once wrote of Merv Hughes, and like Hughes, his barrage of bouncers, glares, curses and general in-your-facedness eventually bagged the big prize.

If there can be one criticism of Andrew Strauss's incredible series, it has to be his habit of getting out at precisely the wrong moment. In mitigation, a player who has top-scored in seven out of nine innings is bound to be missed the moment he leaves the crease. But his first two hundreds at Port Elizabeth and Durban ended shortly after the resumption of play the following morning, and the third at Johannesburg was cut short just before the close.

Today's dismissal, with lightning striking all around and a curtailment only moments away, was similar to his untimely exits at Cape Town and Durban (first innings). It meant that the out-of-form Andrew Flintoff was exposed, albeit briefly, and it left England praying that the foul weather lingers for longer. But, by that stage, Strauss had played his part and more in an 85-run partnership, and had more than atoned for the error that led to Trescothick's run-out.

England's true hero, however, was Graham Thorpe. He is getting too long in the tooth to bother turning up for anything less than an absolute crisis, and today's effort was just typical of the man and his strangely mottled series. But never mind his inconsequential non-appearances at PE and Jo'burg, and recall instead his counterpunching century at Durban, which rescued England from probable defeat, en route to setting up a shot at a miraculous victory.

Today, imminent defeat was a long way off, but England were still 29 for 3 against a fired-up attack, and a quick strike or two from a major crisis. So Thorpe played himself in for the obligatory 30-odd balls, before easing into his trademark nudges and measured cover-drives. Between them, he and Strauss put defeat almost beyond the realms of possibility, and brought the prospect of a first series win in South Africa for 40 years into greater focus.

Almost, but not quite. If the weather is set fair tomorrow morning, which is not out of the question in these parts, South Africa have the means and the desperation to throw everything into one last gamble. They have to go for broke, and it can only make for compelling viewing.