South Africa's bowlers poured a bucket of cold water on England’s hopes of picking up where they left off six weeks ago.
The red hot form of their batters, scorching the ball along the bone dry turf to the boundary time and again was but a distant memory as they struggled to cope with bowler friendly conditions under heavy skies.
Reduced to 55-4 and then 116-6 when the heavens finally opened to curtail the day after just 32 overs, England found themselves in the eye of their own storm. Already they will need something special over the next day or two to even up the contest and wrestle the momentum back from South Africa. Of course they have done that before.
Ollie Pope apart, who remains 61 not out, England's lineup were given a reminder of just how tough Test match batting can be by an attack full of pace and skill that backed up the claims of their skipper from the start.
Dean Elgar knew he had an attack that would be a handful for any brand of cricket and he jumped at the chance to unleash them from the first ball with Ben Stokes wishing he could have done the same.
And he was right to put his faith in a pace quartet led by the fit and firing Kagiso Rabada who accounted for the two openers inside nine overs. But even though England were six wickets down soon after lunch and up against it, don’t fall into the trap of thinking this was Bazball at its worst. Far from it.
Perhaps only Alex Lees can ask himself some searching questions about his approach, trying to drive Rabada on the up and edging through to the keeper. No matter how positive you want to be, the first hour of a Test match in England will always be a tricky thing to negotiate and he didn’t give himself a chance.
Zak Crawley on the other hand could only accept that a world class bowler had got him out with a beauty. He had to play at it and it did just enough to take the edge to Aidan Markram at second slip.
It was a smart bit of cricket. Joe Root was undone by the left arm swing of Marco Jansen and an lbw decision that he clearly didn’t agree with but stood up to the scrutiny of a DRS challenge.
While Jonny Bairstow was clean bowled by the fastest wicket-taking ball this year from Anrich Nortje, clocked at 93 mph. It might have looked a little loose with Bairstow attempting the drive, but in his recent form, who can blame him? Nortje was just too quick and his celebration was just as fiery.
“That was a quick ball,” said Rabada. “It was going to take something special to get an in-form player out.
“Anrich is a very passionate individual, hence the celebration and rightly so, it was a good ball.” The killer for England though was the loss of Stokes on the stroke of lunch - turned inside out by Nortje to take the leading edge.
His was the most skittish innings, but it did briefly put the pressure back on South Africa as he added 45 with the increasingly assured Pope. For a man learning how to bat at three in Test cricket, Pope is taking to the task with great skill.
