“It hurt the team to get beaten like that after having beaten them in the same way in the first Test.” - Keegan Petersen
Telford Vice / London
DEAN Elgar and ice packs aren’t easily or often acquainted. But, during South Africa’s training session at the Oval on Tuesday, he stood quite still and held an ice pack in his left hand. It was clamped to his right shoulder. Clearly there was a problem.
The damage had been done by Mark Boucher, aided and abetted by one of those plastic contraptions meant for throwing balls to dogs in parks that have turned every coach into the poor person’s Malcolm Marshall.
Elgar soon dismissed the ice from his presence. Using his now freed left hand, he pulled his shirt open at the collar to enable South Africa’s medical staff to take a closer look at the shoulder. Then Sarel Erwee peeked in, smiling gingerly. Elgar took himself off towards slip fielding practice, lurking a fair way from the action. He held his right arm awkwardly, and tight to his body when he ran to retrieve a ball. His subsequent throw to send it back from whence it came looked like a squashed swearword.
But Erwee’s smile and the fact that Elgar was on the field at all said there was no danger of South Africa’s captain being ruled out of the third Test. Had the blow been suspected of leading to anything more serious than bruising, Elgar would have been on his way to hospital, not displaying his medal.
And a good thing, too. Because the visitors will likely need all the batting they can get once the match starts on Thursday. As will England, who were bowled out for 165 and 149 at Lord’s and returned the favour by dismissing South Africa for 151 and 179 at Old Trafford. Each match was decided by an innings in three days, and the series has returned to London locked at 1-1.
“It hurt the team to get beaten like that after having beaten them in the same way in the first Test,” Keegan Petersen told a press conference on Tuesday. What to do? “It’s obvious — we need to score hundreds up top,” Petersen said. “That hasn’t happened for a while now. The lower order have saved us a few times. It’s evident that the batters have to step up now and get a couple of big scores.”
No South Africa player has scored a century in the four Tests they have played since Kyle Verreynne made an undefeated 136 in Christchurch in February. But, fuelled by their bowlers and enough runs to get the job done, they have won three of those matches. England have played nine Tests in the same period. And scored 15 hundreds, which has powered them to five victories and limited their losses to two.
“It’s all mental,” Petersen said. “I don’t think we’ve struggled to get in. It’s getting starts and getting out, that’s the problem.” South Africa did that well enough to total 326 in the first innings at Lord’s. England went several better in declaring their first innings closed at 415/9 at Old Trafford. There was thus no mystery about the winning and losing of those games.
“In both Test matches it was lost in the first innings,” Petersen said. “It is evident that the conditions are leaning towards the bowlers to help give them that advantage. But if you can play the first innings better, that’s going to be the team who come out on top.”
England’s method has been the apparent madness of putting attack before all else, and usually ‘Bazball’ — named for Brendon McCullum, the approach’s mastermind — has worked for them.
“Everyone’s free to bat in the way they want to go about their innings,” Ollie Pope told a press conference. “This new era is not at all that you’ve got to go out there and whack it. You can go out there and take the positive option. If it doesn’t come off that’s not an issue. You’re going to have 100% backing from the changing room.
“Whether you want to run down the pitch to a seamer or spinner and try and hit him over the top, and you get out doing it, it’s about making sure you’ve thought a clear process through that; that you’ve got a clear reason why you want to take that attacking option.”
But the sword was double-edged: “It can swing quickly and it can be defined early in the game. It does help winning the previous one.”
Four of England’s most recent 15 hundreds belong to Jonny Bairstow and have made him the leading run-scorer in Test cricket this year. But he is out of the Oval match — and perhaps for as long as a year — with a leg injury sustained on a golf course last week.
“It’s disappointing for us all,” Pope said. “He’s had an amazing summer and it’s been great to have him around the lads. We’re going to miss him, but we’ve got enough guys who’ve been around a long time to feed off each other. We’ll make up for his lost voice, in the field especially. It’s gutting that he’s not here because it would be a great way for him to finish the summer after the way he’s played.”
How hard would Bairstow’s absence hit England? “I wouldn’t say it weakens them, but you can’t deny that Jonny is a big player for them,” Petersen said. “Hopefully he recovers well. But [opponents] don’t thrive on that. I think if Harry Brook comes in he would be equally as good.”
Brook, uncapped in the format but in the squad, has scored 194, two mere centuries, five efforts of more than 70 and a half-century in a dozen first-class innings for Yorkshire this summer.
“He’s 100% got the game to take that into Test cricket,” Pope said of Brook, who he has played with at junior international level. “He’s got the mindset, he loves batting, and he’s all cricket. He’s not the type of guy to be fazed by the occasion.”
Even so, Brook might want to take on board Pope’s advice about how to handle the step up to the international game: “The quality of cricket isn’t necessarily the biggest thing. It’s the noise around it — what happens if you do have a few low scores? That’s the biggest thing to deal with at this level. It’s about not getting ahead of yourself and playing the situation; about trying to get used to an attack as quickly as you can and work out how they’re going to try and challenge you, and adapt as quickly as you can. If some flaws are shown, you need to smooth over them as quickly as you can and make your strengths your super strengths.”
Petersen also offered guidance on batting in a Test: “There’s no situation that can prepare you completely for it. It’s the situation in the middle that you have to prepare for, and you know it’s going to be tough. You have to at least try and fight through that tough period. That’s where you have to challenge yourself mentally all the time. There’s no real process of doing that. It’s just going to happen in the moment.”
Even without Bairstow, England have the stronger batting line-up. Joe Root has scored five of England’s 15 centuries, and Ben Stokes and Ben Foakes added the most recent examples at Old Trafford. They came together at the crease after the home side had slipped to 147/5, and shared a stand of 173. Stokes made 103 and Foakes 113 not out.
“There’s different ways you can go about this attacking way of playing, and he played a ridiculous knock,” Pope said of his captain’s innings. “It’s about attacking when the time is right, and sometimes you’ve got to weather the storm.”
Petersen also had good things to say about Stokes, who featured in half the six county championship matches the South African played for Durham in April and May: “He’s a good guy to have in the changeroom and a good human being. I was star-struck in the beginning. I’m new to international cricket, and to walk into the changeroom with one of the best allrounders in the world was nice.”
Of Petersen’s nine Tests, only two have gone to a fifth day. And not by much: India won two overs after lunch at Centurion in December, and Bangladesh were beaten in the first hour at Kingsmead in April. The way the Lord’s and Old Trafford matches hurtled to a conclusion suggested another torrid affair at the Oval. But Petersen hoped for more gametime: “I’d love to play for five days. I think that’s what the public wants to see. This is what we live for as cricketers; series deciders.”
Pope, who has played all 41 of his county championship matches for Surrey, added a cheeky rider to that: “It’s an exciting Test to be a part of, at the home of cricket.”
Or maybe that wasn’t so cheeky. It was at the Oval, after all, that England played their first two home Tests, against Australia in September 1880 and August 1882.
That wasn’t the only tangent whirling on Tuesday. Asked to confirm a theory that he was named after Kevin Keegan, Petersen delivered an answer sure to shock a country in which cricket has long since ceased to be the most popular sport: “My family doesn’t even watch football, so I can’t say that that’s true. Sorry, no.”
First published by Cricbuzz.
Comments
No comments yet. Start the conversation.