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SA slump turns serious

Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town – In gathering gloom five years ago, South Africa somehow escaped with a fortuitous draw in the Kingsmead Test against England, and roared back into the series with a thumping New Year win at Newlands.

AB de Villiers and the less likely figure of Makhaya Ntini were batting saviours then, as the tourists just could not claim the last two Proteas wickets required before play was called off at 16:45.

On Tuesday the elements intervened at 16:23, with ever-tenacious Mark Boucher and Morne Morkel the unbeaten batsmen this time and the hosts, courtesy of a top- and middle-order horror show, still 156 runs short of avoiding an innings defeat with four miserly wickets in hand.

The crucial difference on this occasion, however, is that there is a full day’s play left in the second Test and, unless rain plays a particularly generous role – it is not tipped to – England will almost certainly go to Cape Town 1-0 up, as they had done in 2004/05 courtesy of an earlier triumph in Port Elizabeth.

So South Africa stand on the brink of one of their most embarrassing home Test defeats in the post-isolation era, and probably their heaviest to these opponents in that period.

All of this season so far, we have waited – many with good patience -- for the Proteas to catch fire at all forms of the game.

It just hasn’t happened and suddenly the threat of real decline, especially on the Test bowling front, beckons more largely than would ever have been expected after the generally lofty achievements of last summer.

Still, it is not necessarily apt to conduct a rigorous post mortem when the “corpse” has not wholly surrendered its pulse.

What prospect of South Africa wriggling off the hook in Durban, at a venue fast taking on bogey proportions after their series-deciding hammering by 175 runs at the hands of Australia in 2008/09?

It seems tenuous indeed, even if Boucher continues to show fluent and belligerent form at the crease and will punch defiantly from the corner in a manner you would expect of someone playing his 128th Test match.

But he has Morkel with him, no bunny given the right circumstances for his style of batting -- although the day-five situation in this match hardly counts in his favour for a lengthy vigil.

He is still notably vulnerable to spin and England’s “offie” Graeme Swann is on a wave of confidence, and turning the ball to an increasingly evident degree on this track.

And being pinged on the side of the helmet for a second time in successive matches means the gangly paceman will not be feeling especially gung-ho about keeping the tourists’ sprightly trio of mainline seamers at bay, either.

Then it is just Paul Harris, who is limited as a stroke-player but will do everything he can to get in line and play straight, and even wear a few “blue medals” on the rib-cage if required to do so in defence of the disturbingly faltering cause, and Dale Steyn and Ntini at Nos 10 and 11 respectively.

You suspect in their case that lightning won’t strike twice … they have had their fun and games at the crease via that merry first-knock alliance of 58 with Steyn hitting balls with dreamy precision down the “fairway” for a while.

And I am pretty convinced now that we will be witness – not at his preferred trade, sadly – to Ntini’s final contribution to the national cause in his 101st Test.

He has bowled 70 mostly lame-duck overs in the series thus far, for figures of two for 234 and an average of 117, and this once-illustrious warrior is surely to be the most obvious casualty as the circus moves to Newlands and the Proteas seek much-needed new fizz to their unimaginative and penetration-shy attack.

Mind you, Ntini isn’t the only waning or problematic element of the South African armoury right now, but that is a matter for another day.
Last rites haven’t yet been read at Kingsmead.

South Africa, though, if the weather holds for most of the three sessions, probably have no more than a five percent prospect of sidestepping the coffin …
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