South Africa show a lot more purpose
The second day of the Cape Town Test was far from dull because the seamers really made the batsmen work hard for their runs and a lot of credit should go to the way the South Africans bowled, writes Michael Atherton in the Times
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
The second day of the Cape Town Test was far from dull because the seamers really made the batsmen work hard for their runs and a lot of credit should go to the way the South Africans bowled, writes Michael Atherton in the Times. Makhaya Ntini’s omission helped, but the suspicion remains that this improvement was more to do with South Africa’s sharply honed competitive instincts rising to the fore again in the wake of the embarrassment of Kingsmead.
As well as South Africa fought, England may feel that they had too much of a hand in their own downfall with the bat. The pitch was a little two-paced and South Africa maintained an impressive discipline throughout, but too many batsmen got themselves in and then got themselves out, either through anxiety, overconfidence or a mixture of both.
Neither Alastair Cook nor Ian Bell could produce the decisive innings on the second day but at least they kept England in the game, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian. However both would have been disappointed by their dismissals.
This is proving to be tight and bewitching series. The one way in which England have shown more initiative than their opponents, is when playing the opposition's spinner. They have attacked Harris more purposefully and more successfully than the South Africans have Graeme Swann.
In the Telegraph, Simon Briggs writes that Graeme Smith has responded well to the immense pressure he's under to put the fight back in to South Africa.
Two evenly poised days in Cape Town represent a victory in themselves for the South Africans. The speed, and manner, of their Durban capitulation went against all the qualities – toughness, pride, determination – that this team hold dear. It must have been an awkward task to turn the dressing room around after such a below-par display, even if the omission of Makhaya Ntini solved one of the most glaring problems.
Ian Bell, England's 'pretty boy' has been hampered by familiar failings, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Bell did a whole heap of pretty things. The cover drive with which he got off the mark was matched by a second a few minutes later. But he was not all showy, he was prepared, it seemed, to tough it out. This was Bell's big chance to persuade his critics that they have misjudged him: he has never scored England's only hundred in an innings, indeed he has never scored the first.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo