Attack or grind?

It was a day of conflicting approaches to England's intractable problem - a deficit of 269. There was the Ian Botham Headingley '81 approach - attack, and attack some more; and the wearisome but also proven grind-them-into-the-ground method. Neither Kevin Pietersen's flamboyance nor Andrew Flintoff's patience had worked, writes Tanya Aldred in the Guardian.

Kevin Pietersen stood on the balcony in the morning session watching Jimmy Anderson and Alastair Cook. He twisted and turned his tall primed body for everyone to see. This was a warrior and you could smell his anticipation . . . and the crowd's . . . and the South Africans'.

In the Telegraph, Simon Hughes feels there is frequently a one-day impetuousness about England's batting in Test cricket.

England showed only flashes of such precise judgment. They couldn’t sustain it. The South Africans plugged away outside off stump knowing that 'leave’ is something that only applies to some English batsmen when their wife’s having a baby. They are drawn to widish balls like moths to the light.

In the same paper, Derek Pringle feels England should make note of the fact that South Africa have not gone on to win their last three Test series in the country despite taking the lead. He says England need to recharge quickly and reclaim the energy with which they rocked South Africa early into the Lord's Test.

Back-to-back Tests may be commercially seductive but they often punish the team making the running in the first instalment, in this case England, whose players were mentally jaded after three successive days in the field at Lord’s.

In the Independent, Chris McGrath praises James Anderson's gutsy display as a nightwatchman, something the rest failed to mirror.

What makes diamonds unique is not their lustre but their hardness, and there is no mistaking which of these sides is best equipped to resist abrasion. For this success was hewn from a stratum that often seems to lie far beyond the reach of an Englishman with a bat in his hand. In fairness, the bravest performance yesterday came from one such in James Anderson – and the frothiest, come to that, from a son of Natal in Kevin Pietersen.