Johannesburg - It may not yet be classified in the same class as Shane Warne's alleged "ball from hell" but Allan Donald's delivery which uprooted Mike
Atherton's off-stump yesterday could have already won South Africa a major
psychological advantage in this summer's series against England.
While England's coach Duncan Fletcher did his best to down-play the delivery
which saw their top batsman dismissed second ball without a run to his
name, it is easy to imagine what the skipper, Nasser Hussain must have been thinking when he walked out to face the man they call White Lightning.
It also needs a special effort for any side to overcome the handicap of being
only two runs on the board with four wickets down and the sight of a hyped
Donald bowling balls at between 135 and 138 kmp/h and seaming around in
alarming fashion.
Fletcher's criticism of the pitch was, however, perhaps more muted than had he
been an Australian. He saw the surface as being "too bowler friendly up front
to last five days and critical on the opening day of a series".
Under such circumstances it needed a cool approach and it was not much use to
"run around and panicking and wonder what is going on out there (in the
middle".
Fletcher said that under the circumstances it had been better to tell Andy
Flintoff and Vaughan to go and play their natural game as pushing tentatively
at the ball could have seen England in a lot worse trouble than the 122, the
lowest scored England have been dismissed for at this Wanderers venue. The
previous was 150 some 42 years ago when the ground was first opened.
He agreed the total was not a competitive one but felt it could have been a
lot worse. Had England reached 150 or 175 they would have felt it would have been, under the circumstances, a respectable total.
Donald's view of his performance was a calm response of, "I couldn't have
wished for a better start to the series." He also thought that if South Africa
managed to negotiate the first session without losing too many wickets a total
of 300 plus would be a fair score if the sun flattened out the pitch later in
the day.
Fletcher agreed that the bowling of Donald and Shaun Pollock was a world class
performance while admitting the pitch, which was far from easy to bat on, gave
them all the opportunity to show what can be done without giving anything
away.
"There are times when you get conditions such as this where the guys do not
bowl well but here we have two bowlers who bowled very well," said the man who
only last South African season coached Western Province to the SuperSport
Series Trophy.
"We have to remain positive as I feel that it would not have been easy for any
side to bat in such conditions so early in the match.
"We have been positive up until this stage, telling the guys to look forward
and not back.
"It is the sort of surface which will do something early in the morning and if
we get two or three quick wickets and it could change the progress of the
innings," said Fletcher.
He had praise for debutant Michael Vaughan's innings who when, with heads
rolling around him, batted with calm assurance.
Pollock's bowling, which netted him four wickets almost did as much as Donald
to send England's innings into the sort of disarray you occasionally get at
the Wanderers: seven years ago, against India it was three for 11 and later four
for 26 as Manoj Prabhakar and Javagal Srinath worked the ball around after
Kepler Wessels had won the toss and decided to bat first.
India, at Headingley, Leeds 1952, lost four wickets without a run on the board
when Fred Trueman made his debut for England. And in 1966/67 against Bobby
Simpson's Australians South Africa were 41 for five before recovering to reach
199 and go on to win the match.
Yesterday though, round one of the Donald-Atherton duel went to the fast
bowler: it did not even get down to a one on one struggle, just a tester then
the armour-piercing rocketing in-swinger which left the batsman in no man's
land as he pushed forward; and it was only the sixth ball of the day, the
first dramatic over of the series.
Six balls later it was Pollock's turn: a lifter kicking up at Hussain and the
England captain standing a moment before the Indian umpire, Srinivas
Venkataraghavan, signalling the long walk to the pavilion as the small, vocal
crowd joined in.
Butcher, the left-hander, edging a catch to give Mark Boucher the first of his
bag of five and Alec Stewart trapped in front the next ball; high drama and
long before high noon. The now ball skating around on a surface designed to
aid cut and seam as well as pace and found England's top-order unable to cope with the aggressive South African approach.
Which perhaps places in perspective the batting of Herschelle Gibbs and Gary
Kirsten who fell for 13 and Jacques Kallis as South Africa reached 61 for one
in reply, Kirsten lbw to the left-hander Alan Mullally.