When Nasser Hussain was captain and his players had an off-day in the field
(contrary to rose-tinted opinion, this tended to happen once every other
innings), his great lament was that English bowlers lack "mystery". Hard as
we might dig, he would argue, Harbhajans and Saqlains are the exception, not
the rule. And until one is unearthed, England are sure to be subjected to
the odd day of toil.

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Marcus Trescothick: took an eternity to get off the mark, but reached 64 not out by the close
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That had palpably been the case on the first day here, when the lack of mystery
had extended even to the captaincy. "England are bowling for run-outs," it
was suggested by one observer. Today, for want of an alternative, that
snide aside became a definitive game-plan. And you know what? It worked.
On the face of it, South Africa blew it. Until Shaun Pollock and Makhaya
Ntini added 52 bullish runs after lunch, seven prime middle-order wickets
had gone down for 87. On a good wicket, and in prime conditions, even England
would have been hard-pressed to slump to such spectacular effect. Had they
done so, however, they surely wouldn't have owed quite so much to sheer bad
luck.
Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Pollock - South Africa's three middle-order
veterans - were all sawn off one way or another. Kallis was cruelly run out
by the tips of Ashley Giles's fingers; Boucher, who clipped his pad with his
bat, was unfortunate that umpire Venkat missed Martin Bicknell's initial
look of disappointment. All of which, and more, left Pollock high and dry -
and flying - on 66 not out. Another 100 runs between them (a conservative
ask on past form) and the series would have been secured.
It's one thing to give a sucker an even break. It's another thing entirely
for that sucker to respond to the gesture. But in Marcus Trescothick and
Graham Thorpe, England found two batsmen with tentacles on their wickets.
Not coincidentally, they were also the two batsmen with the most to prove in
this match.
Their cases are also very different. At the age of 34, Thorpe is returning
to the side for the first time in a year, and is understandably eager to
impress. Trescothick, on the other hand, has never been dropped, but for all
the stick he's received lately, he might as well have been. With everything
to prove, his innings was a throwback to his debut at Old Trafford in 2000
when, perversely enough, his awareness of his off stump was the defining
aspect of his game.
On that occasion, Trescothick took an eternity to get off the mark, battling
through an exemplary opening spell from Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose,
en route to a hugely composed 66. And today, once again, he allowed himself
no jiggery-pokery as Pollock and Ntini teased his outside edge, and the
cheer of the day was reserved for his first scoring stroke, after 23 dot-balls.
The boo of the day, on the other hand, was reserved for the moment when he
and Thorpe accepted the umpire's offer of bad light. But unlike that
dreadful defining moment at Headingley, the catcalls were largely in jest. The crowd knew, as Trescothick knew, that his day's work was very much complete.