On the third morning at Centurion England felt the Boxing Day Test slip away through a combination of sickness and stubborn South African batting. By lunch, the overnight lead of 175 had been swelled to 300 and with power, in the frantic form of Quinton de Kock, to add.
It was, for England, a highly frustrating morning. It started when the wicketkeeper Jos Buttler became the fourth player to be quarantined through illness. Jonny Bairstow took the gloves.
Ten overs into the day, captain Joe Root would join them. He would return to the field, but not for long. The good news that Ollie Pope was now well enough to come to the ground and train felt like a distant memory. There have been 10 players and four backroom staff affected by the illness on tour so far. It is just about unprecedented.
The running between the wickets from the debutant Rassie van der Dussen and the nightwatchman Anrich Nortje was somewhere between sharp and suicidal, but England never hit the stumps. For an hour or so, their boundaries came almost exclusively off the edge.
DRS got involved twice, and went against England twice. Sam Curran had Nortje given out caught behind, but his review revealed it had hit his shoulder, not his bat. Then Jofra Archer thought he had van der Dussen lbw, Chris Gaffaney disagreed, and the review from Ben Stokes (deputising for Root as captain) revealing that the ball was hitting the stumps –but not by enough to overturn.
Their partnership was soon worth 50, and then van der Dussen had his maiden Test half-century, an increasingly assured innings studded with lovely drives. Nortje, copping a barrage of short stuff, played a super hand, too.
The England players and staff struck down by illness
Joe Root, Ben Stokes (suffered from dehydration on day one of the first Test, Jos Buttler, Stuart Broa, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Joe Denly, Chris Woakes, Graham Thorpe (batting coach). Carl Hopkinson (fielding coach), Sam Dickason (security manager), Greg Stobart (digital manager
Eventually, 90 minutes into the session, England took a wicket. Archer rapped van der Dussen on the pads and this time Gaffaney’s finger went up, and the review would not save him. Out strode de Kock, possibly the last man England wanted to see. He duly swatted Archer for successive sixes, then drove Stuart Broad uppishly through cover.
Nortje was gone in Archer’s next over, caught at short leg by one of the many sub fielders, Zak Crawley, and left to a standing ovation. Even when Stokes – after a little row with Stuart Broad – came on and dismissed Dwaine Pretorius, de Kock kept swinging taking Archer’s final over before lunch for 14.
