Sport

First Test meanders to a drab draw

— PHOTO: AP

RARE STRIKE: Jacques Kallis was cleaned up by Ryan Sidebottom on a day when the bowlers found the going tough.

LONDON: A few minutes after England walked off the field at Lord’s following two barren days in which it took only three South African wickets in the second innings of the first Test it was announced that Andrew Flintoff would return for the second game of the series at Headingley on Friday.

It was a boost England badly needed for a game it thought it had won only to see it drift away on a merciless pitch.

If the case for the return of Flintoff needed to be made again it was on a day when the South African batsmen were untroubled on a pitch so peaceful it appeared to be dead. There was so little hope of a result that England’s opening batsman Andrew Strauss was given permission to go home for the birth of his second child on this final day of the first Test.

The hospital is only a couple of miles from the ground and I guess that if there had been a sudden clatter of wickets he could have returned in 40 minutes but there was no chance he was going to be needed any time soon. The wicket of Neil McKenzie fell immediately caught behind by Tim Ambrose to give James Anderson his second wicket of the innings at 329 for two but it could only be assumed he was either tired or bored.

Later it was announced that McKenzie had a groin strain so we had to make a second guess he was simply going off as a precaution against playing in the second Test only three days hence. Jacques Kallis was bowled by a Ryan Sidebottom yorker half an hour before tea. Eventually, after one false retreat with 21 overs remaining, the players came out for two more overs before the game was abandoned as a draw with Hashim Amla undefeated on 104 out of 393 for three declared.

McKenzie had batted almost nine hours and Amla more than three hours at lunch and just like the fourth day when the ball never moved off the straight and had all the life force of a burst balloon and although there were half a dozen stentorian appeals the signs of the victory England wanted so desperately were non-existent.

It was lacking a stick of dynamite or a salvo of shells to unleash in other words a spell from Flintoff that might have shaken the South African trenches.

Flintoff has been out so long since January 2007 that he has never figured in a Test side since Peter Moores became coach or Geoff Miller was made the national selector.

He and the captain Michael Vaughan have not been in the same Test side since the Test at Faisalabad in 2006.

He swears he is fit, he trained with England on the eve of this Test and he has taken wickets in the Lancashire match against Somerset at Taunton.

By tea we were beginning to think in terms of the timeless Tests of long ago but I guess that in a few years statisticians will be referring to the barren period from 2006 at Lord’s.

The last result in a Test on this ground was the Ashes match of 2005.

SCOREBOARD

  England — 1st innings: 593 for eight decl.

South Africa — 1st innings: 247.

South Africa — 2nd innings: G. Smith c Pietersen b Anderson 107, N. McKenzie c Ambrose b Anderson 138, H. Amla (not out) 104, J. Kallis b Sidebottom 13, A. Prince (not out) 9; Extras (b-8, lb-8, w-5, nb-1): 22; Total (for three wkts. decl. in 167 overs): 393.

Fall of wickets: 1-204, 2-329, 3-357.

England bowling: Panesar 60-15-116-0, Pietersen 7-1-21-0, Sidebottom 30-9-46-1, Anderson 32-7-78-2, Broad 26-7-78-0, Collingwood 11-4-37-0, Cook 1-0-1-0.

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