Bairstow exposes sloppy South Africa
Keshav Maharaj is chasing the ball out to the boundary, but perhaps chasing is the wrong term, he's following the ball, and the ball is gradually getting slower. He eventually picks it up, largely as it's pretty much given up on its own.
England wanted to be attacking, or reckless, this morning. Toby Roland-Jones, Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad seemed to have all been told they only had 15 minutes to live. South Africa just had to remain disciplined, stay calm, and pick up their wickets.
They were undisciplined, not calm, and yet they kept picking up wickets. With one wicket left, Jonny Bairstow was batting with James Anderson when he gave a chance. Bairstow hadn't been batting well, last night he struggled through, today he was better, not fluent. His control stats suggested a player that was trying hard and being lucky. But South Africa wouldn't have wanted Bairstow to wake up when he was batting in the last-wicket partnership. And it shouldn't have happened.
The ball is full, wide and the edge leaves the bat going low and to the right of Quinton de Kock. It isn't a simple chance, but de Kock made harder catches look easier yesterday. Of course, there was one chance, off Joe Root, that he failed to move yesterday. This time he does move, but he drops it.
Bairstow is 53 off 107 balls.
A few balls later Bairstow guides the ball down to Heino Kuhn at third man. Bairstow doesn't take off straight away, and then when he does Kagiso Rabada is in his way. But despite the fact he's hit the ball pretty much straight to Kuhn, they take two. It is clear that Kuhn isn't moving well. To finish the over he hits the ball into the ring field and takes off, stealing another single. In six balls they've dropped him, and allowed him to retain the strike twice.
Next over Faf du Plessis starts putting out the field for Bairstow. The same guy who has just edged a ball behind suddenly is so dominant that other than two slips, everyone is spread everywhere. Morne Morkel bowled Broad the over before, and now he's bowling to a stupid field he doesn't seem to understand.
Bairstow smashes a boundary off Rabada the next over, and then lets Anderson face out the last two balls. Bairstow beats the man in the deep on the leg side for a boundary off Morkel, waits for the field to come in before scoring another, and then steals a single off the last ball of the over which is a limp wide ball that makes no sense at all. None of it does.
The next over from Rabada there are two twos, with an entire field set up to stop twos. The field comes up, Bairstow smashes another four. The final ball is on his hip, the sort of ball you bowl when you want to get a player off strike. Which is exactly what it does.
At one stage Kuhn is chasing the ball to the boundary, but he's moving like he's been held back by what appears to be a flock of invisible crows flying in the other direction. He's injured, and he looks beaten. He's not the only one.
Duanne Olivier comes on, Bairstow ramps him, smacks him, and then trying to get a single off the last ball accidentally times it so well he hits another four. In less than six overs South Africa have turned Bairstow from a kid's slingshot into the death star.
Olivier's next over has more twos. South Africa has all these men out, all of them 20 or 30 metres from the boundary, and yet Bairstow keeps embarrassing them. It looks like the plan to allow twos is not cunning cricket by Bairstow, but some failed rope-a-doping from South Africa. Bairstow takes another single, and then he's out on 99. An unforced error. England have put on 50 for the last partnership and have made over 350 again.
The worst thing is that this is exactly what they did at The Oval. South Africa took wickets, but never kept the pressure on long enough. This missed chances, they never shut England down. And when they were finally ready to end the innings, they allowed English batsmen to free themselves with these knuckleheaded everyone-out-on-the-boundary-why-don't-you-have-a-swing fields. It's not just stupid; it's consistent stupidity.
And to top it off, they lose a wicket. Anderson has got it to swing in; it's straight and tough. Dean Elgar has already played and missed at a ball with something that loosely resembled a cricket shot his first ball. Now he's pinned on the crease, straight in front, and as the finger is raised he's limping around the crease like's he's not just been dismissed, but destroyed.
At The Oval Faf du Plessis talked about South Africa's mistakes, here they just replicated them. South Africa started the first session a chance to go ahead in the game; they ended it limping.