LORDY, I haven’t had so much fun since the last root canal filling. There are some sporting events that are so excruciating you can scarcely bear to watch, not so much because of patriotism as common humanity. There’s a limit to how much suffering I can take, even when it’s happening to someone else.
The worst thing was that there seems to be no end to it. There are similar situations in other sports, but they are never quite as awful as the sort of thing Test cricket can deliver when it has a mind. You get the pathetic sight of the skater who has fallen off her triple salchow and gets up with ice all over her axel. The music still plays, the make-up still glistens, the joie de vivre choreography continues, but the smile is a glittering grimace and the next fall a hideous inevitability.
That’s what England were like yesterday, with the sad difference that it lasted for rather more than six minutes of Zorba the Greek. It has gone on for two days so far and guess what, there are three more to come. Think of it: three more days of watching England march in slow- motion on the slippery road to disaster.
The referee only stops fights. He doesn’t blow the whistle halfway through Carmen to stop a disastrous skating routine, he doesn’t let a tennis match stop at the first 6-0, and a Test match must be seen through to its grisly climax even if the result is obvious after the first hour.
England began the match with a batting collapse. But that wasn’t enough, oh no. They went on to stage a bowling collapse. It was helped considerably by a catching collapse. There’s a blues song that goes something like: “Everythin’ Ah ever done wuz wrong.” Not a terribly positive song, you will gather, but as the singer was blind and penniless and probably on death row, you must concede he has a point. Poor old Michael Vaughan. The new England captain would happily swap place with that blues singer. Woke up this morning fixin’ to die, got those England captaincy blues, woo.
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That bowling collapse was something to behold. England were utterly hopeless. I don’t mean that they played poorly, I mean that they played without hope. The idea that South Africa might lose a wicket was completely absurd. Ridiculous; England bowlers don’t take wickets, South Africa batsmen don’t get out.
I’m not completely sure what Vaughan’s masterplan was, but I think it was to bowl for run-outs. Nice idea — only possible idea, in fact — but it didn’t come off. He rotated his bowlers, tried ideas, threw in a few funky fielding positions, talked to his bowlers, wore his sunglasses on his cap — and everything he touched turned to ordure.
The Reverse Midas Touch is a theme I have explored at length before, and Vaughan has clearly read every word. Perhaps the most truly awful thing for him was watching his opposite number, Graeme Smith, another tyro captain and, at 22, six years his junior.
Smith is going through the other kind of Midas Touch, the kind more familiar in legend, but far less frequently found in life. What will happen to Smith when he wakes up? He is in his fourth Test as captain, he murdered England in the drawn first match of the series and is in the process of murdering them again.
Smith has clearly come to the conclusion that when compared with such tricky stuff as falling off a log, Test cricket is pretty straightforward. Failure? I believe I once read about that in a book, but I didn’t understand what they were getting at. A double-hundred in successive Tests: it doesn’t get much better.
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Vaughan has known times not dissimilar to that, though not as a captain. He was England’s golden cricketer, Wisden’s cover-boy. He seemed to make a century every time he batted. I say, here’s a great cricketer, how can we bugger him up? I know: make him captain. And so Vaughan finds himself sipping from the cup of failure. Sipping? He’s bathing in the stuff, wallowing in it, up to his chin and beyond.
A batsman-captain can’t take the wickets. He can only direct his forces as best he can. Small example: the new ball was available, he took it. After two overs, he decided that Darren Gough wasn’t going to get anywhere. James Anderson had bowled one over and got replaced by Stephen Harmison, but that, you see, was a cunning ploy to switch ends. Anderson started again from the other end: bowled a full-bunger that got wiped for four. Had it been a middle-stump yorker, Vaughan would have been a genius. Or at least a bit less of a failure.
Life might have been a little less bleak had Mark Butcher clung on to a slip catch in the morning. How can a captain stop fielders dropping catches? Don’t trouble yourself thinking about it: enough captains have tried already. Eventually, with the sound of the bottoms of barrels being scraped echoing across the sward at Lord’s, Anthony McGrath got a bowl and, for the second time in not much more than 24 hours, a wicket fell.
England were a pretty good side a couple of matches ago. Now they have retreated into atavistic incompetence. They are playing like a side accustomed to the weary pilgrimage from defeat to defeat. Only the captain is different, and he hasn’t done much wrong, apart from existing. What can Vaughan do to get out of this desperate situation? I’ve heard suicide recommended, though not by anyone with practical experience . . . got those no wickets, double-century, can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field, England captaincy blues. Woo.
Full scoreboard from Lord’s
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South Africa won toss
ENGLAND: First Innings 173 (M Ntini 5 for 75).
SOUTH AFRICA: First Innings
*G C Smith not out 214
(463min, 301 balls, 29 fours)
H H Gibbs b Harmison 49
(149min, 96 balls, 5 fours)
G Kirsten b McGrath 108
(284min, 244 balls, 15 fours)
H H Dippenaar not out 11
(27min, 28 balls, 2 fours)
Extras (b 8, lb 8, w 5, nb 9) 30
Total (2 wkts, 110 overs, 463min) 412
J A Rudolph, A J Hall, †M V Boucher, S M Pollock, D Pretorius, M Ntini and
P R Adams to bat.
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-133 (34.5; Smith 71); 2-390 (103.4; Smith 204).
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BOWLING: Gough 21-3-87-0 (nb 7, w 1; 12 fours; 5-1-18-0, 2-0-14-0, 5-2-16-0/lunch/2-0-9-0, 2-0-10-0, 5-0-20-0); Anderson 17-3-73-0 (11 fours; 5-1-23-0, 5-2-8-0, 4-0-18-0, 1-0-4-0, 2-0-20-0); Harmison 16-3-64-1 (w 1; 12 fours; 4-1-19-0, 5-2-11-1/stumps/ 4-0-18-0, 3-0-16-0); Flintoff 25-5-71-0 (nb 2; 9 fours; 6-0-21-0, 2-0-6-0, 3-1-7-0, 8-2-19-0, 1-1-0-0/tea/ 5-1-18-0); Giles 20-1-64-0 (3 fours; 7-0-22-0, 2-1-1-0 /lunch/11-0-41-0); Butcher 6-1-19-0 (w 3; 2 fours; 1-0-1-0, 5-1-18-0); McGrath 5-0-18-1 (2 fours; one spell).
SCORING NOTES: Second day: Drizzle and poor light delayed start by 75min.
Lunch (at 1.15pm): 216-1 (59 overs, 255min; Smith 116, Kirsten 29). Second new ball taken at 3.14pm — 285-1 (80.2 overs).
Tea: 337-1 (90 overs, 377min; Smith 178, Kirsten 84).
Bad light stopped play at 5.46pm. Play abandoned at 6.10pm.
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Umpires: S A Bucknor (West Indies, 81st Test — record) and D B Hair (Australia, 47th).
Replay umpire: P Willey (England).
Fourth umpire: N J Llong (England).
Match referee: R S Madugalle (Sri Lanka).
SERIES DETAILS: First Test (Edgbaston), drawn.
TESTS TO COME: Third (Trent Bridge): August 14-18; Fourth (Headingley): August 21-25; Fifth (The Oval): September 4-8.