There was a packed crowd here, basking in the Cape Town sunshine, and they couldn't quite decide who had the bragging rights after a dramatic morning session and a sometimes ponderous afternoon.
The flags of St George were waving early on as South African wickets tumbled but they seemed to lose some of their colour then, bleached into flags of truce by the searing sun and by the rapid fall of England's early batsmen.
I watched the first session in my hotel room, struck down in the night by that affliction which can only be confronted by a fistful of Imodium and a nearby bathroom.
When I turned the TV on at 10.15am I thought I was watching a highlights package as South Africa lost their last four wickets in the space of 20 minutes while adding 12 runs. Then Andrew Strauss, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen were rushed back to the dressing room by the South Africa fast bowlers.
Since I arrived at the ground at lunchtime, however, hardly anything has happened. But the cricket has been no less absorbing for that.
After the cheap dismissal of Paul Collingwood, the destiny of the England innings was placed in the hands of Ian Bell, England's veteran virgin soldier, and Alastair Cook, who for the second time in as many matches made a deliberate effort to get on top of the slow left-armers from Paul Harris.
Cook has never been regarded as a particularly good player of spin bowling but he dominated Harris in Durban and here he hit him out the attack with a series of leg-side blows, though the 50 partnership between the two batsmen still occupied 96 minutes and 136 balls.
The afternoon was worth only 69 from 28 overs. That's how tough the cricket has been.
It has been Bell, though, who has caught the nervous eye. He scored a fine century in Durban but he is England's permanently on-trial batsman, the side's hoary Peter Pan.
It took him 15 deliveries before he got off the mark with a four and then another even longer age before he hit another four. But he survived Harris, who infamously bowled him with no stroke coming from the batsman in the first innings at Centurion, and then he saw off a fiery spell of short-pitched bowling from Jacques Kallis.
At tea England were 133 for four and half-hearted cheers from the crowd confirmed the fact that they couldn't quite decide who was winning.
