South Africa aim for the snake's head

"If you can cut off the head of the snake, the rest of the body tends to fall."
Dale Steyn, Perth, November 2016.

Nevermind the card decks and the adult magazines, the modern change room's most interesting piece of equipment is the blackboard. It's where the team's secrets are revealed. Some of them may contain some element of strategy - a pitch map perhaps, with areas that need to be targeted for certain batsmen - others may have news clippings. Somewhere in between the serious stuff, someone would have drawn something silly and someone else would have marked their territory: "so-and-so was here".

Legend has it that South Africa's board contains a session scorecard on which they record who took the honours over each period of play. Since November, it may have also included the above line from Steyn, because that seems to be the approach their attack is taking even in his absence. Angelo Mathews found himself in the firing line during probing periods early on, when South Africa's attack went in search of wickets.

They found three wickets inside the first eight overs, preying on the inexperience of men they had barely seen before, and were desperate for a fourth. So desperate that on the ninth ball Mathews faced, a Kagiso Rabada delivery that jagged back in, Quinton de Kock convinced Faf du Plessis to ask for a review, albeit reluctantly.

Not only was de Kock the only one of the four men behind the stumps, which included du Plessis, who appealed but he was the only one in St George's Park to do so, actually. Rabada was not interested, presumably because he could see the daylight between bat and ball in his follow through, Castle Corner was not interested, and it was too early for them to be inebriated, and the band wasn't interested either. If anyone could make enough noise to convince an umpire of the voracity of an appeal, it was them and they were silent.

The review was duly wasted and Mathews was given an assurance of the importance of his scalp. He got through to lunch, but not before edging Rabada through between third slip and gully, and then the real test began.

Vernon Philander did as he had promised in November as well and "got ugly" immediately after the break. The second ball after lunch reared up off a shorter length and cannoned into Mathews' right elbow. The snake was being teased. With a blade. On the head.

And then it hissed.

Mathews' first shot of real authority was a drive through the covers, that he leaned into with just the right amount of cool to remind his hosts that the day could turn out to be less about reptiles and more about Rolls Royces. He showed that all the talk about snakes could become insignificant, that this could be the captain's knock. South Africa would not have needed that much jogging of their memories. In five Tests before this that Mathews played against them, he scored four fifties. They know what he is capable of when in form. They also know he had spent the last few months struggling to find the kind of touch he has had in the last two years.

So when Philander got one to nip back in, beat the inside edge and thud into Mathews' back pad, South Africa used their second review. It was a better one, and replays showed that the ball was only just missing leg stump, but it was still a wasted one. In 17.1 overs, South Africa squandered both their chances of calling on technology, on the same man, who was still there. And if that wasn't enough to cause frustration, Mathews edged the next ball between third slip and gully again.

Philander kept going at the Sri Lankan captain, leading, as Steyn would have, with aggression and intent. He tried to lure Mathews into playing at one outside off and almost succeeded when Mathews saw the chance to put foot and thought about a booming drive before pulling on his own handbrake. Philander tried to surprise him with back-of-a-length balls that took off from divots, seamed the ball away from him and squared him up with a legbreak.

"You are always going to find one batter that you want to get out and I made it my job to try and get him out today," Philander said. "I was trying to make life as tough as possible for him out there."

Mathews was stubborn and stoic, determined to force his way into form and deny Philander. With Dinesh Chandimal at the other end, he had the right partner to take the pressure off him and as the afternoon grew long, the chance to face bowlers with a little less blood on the brain.

Rabada had a rare less-than-excellent day and was wayward in his line, and as Allan Donald, South Africa's former bowling coach, noted on Twitter, a little down in pace. Keshav Maharaj had only just come into the attack and in hindsight, Mathews would have realised he may have been able to cash in against him, had he batted longer. But Mathews' biggest regret won't be that he was dismissed, it would be how he was dismissed.

He reached for a Rabada delivery and was caught at third slip. The snake was beheaded. The body is still standing, but only just. Steyn was onto something after all.