Playthrough - England in the 1990s... and beyond

[Aislabie]

England Tour of South Africa, 2004-05

Itinerary
17 Dec 2004 - South Africa vs England - First Test at Port Elizabeth
26 Dec 2004 - South Africa vs England - Second Test at Durban
02 Jan 2005 - South Africa vs England - Third Test at Cape Town
13 Jan 2005 - South Africa vs England - Fourth Test at Johannesburg
21 Jan 2005 - South Africa vs England - Fifth Test at Centurion

England Squad

Nasser Hussain

Paul Collingwood
Kevin Pietersen
Andrew Strauss
Graham Thorpe
Marcus Trescothick
Michael Vaughan

James Foster
Chris Read

Andrew Flintoff

Kabir Ali
Jimmy Anderson
Steve Harmison
Matthew Hoggard
Simon Jones
Ryan Sidebottom

Ashley Giles
Graeme Swann

This is a huge tour for England: five Test matches, and the thing that's grabbing all the headlines: a debut for the most anticipated England player since Graeme Hick. Kevin Pietersen has recently finished his four-year qualifying period and made an eye-catching start to his ODI career in the recent series against Zimbabwe. ODI captain Michael Vaughan also found form on that trip, and has been recalled to the Test squad as the spare opener. He made three half-centuries in four innings on that tour, which followed an impressive 86 against Australia in the Champions Trophy semi-final. On the other hand, there is little change to the bowling and keeping ranks: both Giles and Read have recovered from their summer injuries, and the one bowler to miss out is the unlucky James Kirtley who still finds himself behind Kabir Ali in the fast bowling queue.

 

[Aislabie]

South Africa vs England - First Test at Port Elizabeth

South African XI
Graeme Smith
AB de Villiers
Jacques Rudolph
Jacques Kallis
Boeta Dippenaar
Zander de Bruyn
Shaun Pollock
Andrew Hall
Thami Tsolikile
Makhaya Ntini
Dale Steyn

English XI
Marcus Trescothick
Andrew Strauss
Nasser Hussain
Graham Thorpe
Kevin Pietersen (debut)
Andrew Flintoff
Chris Read
Graeme Swann
Ryan Sidebottom
Simon Jones
Steve Harmison

- - -

England won the toss and chose to bat

- - -

The opening Test of the Basil D'Oliveira Trophy series featured no fewer than three debutants: for England, the much hyped Kevin Pietersen comes straight into the side and is expected to bat at number five. For South Africa, two young players called "AB de Villiers" and "Dale Steyn" make their debuts. It will be interesting to see which if any of this trio amount to anything at Test level in the coming years. The St George's Park pitch looks extremely flat: coupled with the bright sun overhead it should be a great day for batting, which England won the first chance to do.

Sure enough, the England batters immediately looked comfortable: they started with a century opening partnership before the loss of Trescothick brought the England captain to the crease. Hussain got straight into his work, taking a very measured approach to some high quality South African seam bowling (the spin attack amounted to one over each from Rudolph and Smith). Hussain was undeterred by the loss of Andrew Strauss as he and Graham Thorpe batted well into the second day. Hussain was rewarded with his ninth and best Test century; Thorpe fell a little short on 89. It was disappointing then that after such a good start, England were not able to kick on and make a truly match-defining total: Pollock, Kallis, Ntini and Steyn ran through the last eight English wickets for just 106 runs.

A fast and hostile new ball spell, spread on either side of the close of the second day, saw wickets from Harmison and Jones reduce South Africa to 84 for three: not a catastrophe by any means, but real, meaningful progress for the English attack. When Sidebottom and Flintoff then added the scalps of Dippenaar and Smith, it was clear that England had a huge upper hand, even with the exceptionally deep South African batting line-up. But that deep batting line-up offered nothing that could counter the pace of Flintoff, the swing of Sidebottom or the spin of Swann: sensationally, the visitors had bowled out the hosts for just 128 runs.

With so few overs in his bowlers' legs, Hussain might have been expected to enforce the follow-on, but he instead sent his batters out to attack what was left of day three. Wickets fell of course, but the fantastic Marcus Trescothick was flying: he had reached 86 by the close of play, so Hussain batted on long enough the following morning to allow him to reach a fine century before declaring the innings with a lead of 487.

The South African batters did offer noticeably more resistance the second time around: Graeme Smith led the way with his broad-batted forward defensive, but the English bowlers were still consistently able to extract wicket balls from what was still a relatively benign pitch. First Flintoff, then Sidebottom managed to find edges from South African bats, but the real weapon turned out to be Graeme Swann (who wasn't even meant to be playing this game, but I forgot to swap Giles in). It turns out that even a South African day four pitch is still a day four pitch, and Swann was able to quite consistently find the foot holes. He claimed possibly the best haul of his career, taking the wickets of Smith, Kallis, de Bruyn, Pollock, Dippenaar and Ntini on his way to six for 35.

It should be no surprise to anybody that Graeme Swann Marcus Trescothick (?!) won man of the match as England took a big 1-0 lead: their 12th consecutive Test match win.

Spoiler: Barrington Medal Points

I've also included a Player of the Season award in the style of the Allan Border Medal - the Barrington Medal.

Spoiler: Points system

Drawn or lost match
Best player - 3 points
2nd best player - 2 points
3rd best player - 1 point

Won match
Best player - 5 points
2nd best player - 3 points
3rd best player - 2 points
4th best player - 1 point

Standings
1. Graeme Swann - 5 points (+5)
2. Nasser Hussain - 3 points (+3)
3. Marcus Trescothick - 2 points (+2)
4. Andrew Flintoff - 1 point (+1)

 

[Aislabie]

South Africa vs England - Second Test at Durban

South African XI
Graeme Smith
Herschelle Gibbs
Jacques Rudolph
Jacques Kallis
Martin van Jaarsveld
Hashim Amla
AB de Villiers
Shaun Pollock
Nicky Boje
Makhaya Ntini
Dale Steyn

English XI
Marcus Trescothick
Andrew Strauss
Nasser Hussain
Graham Thorpe
Kevin Pietersen (debut)
Andrew Flintoff
Chris Read
Graeme Swann
Ryan Sidebottom
Matthew Hoggard
Jimmy Anderson

- - -

England won the toss and chose to bat

- - -

As usual, both teams arrived in Durban having made changes. For England, it was the usual rotation of the pace pack; for South Africa, I don't even know how many changes. Gibbs, van Jaarsveld, Amla and Boje came into the side for Dippenaar, de Bruyn, Hall and Tsolikile, and de Villiers - who had debuted a week earlier as an opening bat - today plays at number seven and keeps wicket. The fact that this is what actually happened in real life absolutely melts my brain to be honest. Ah, it was the Eric Simons era. That makes more sense. All the same, this is probably one of the greatest on-paper XIs ever assembled, and we should show it due respect.

England went one better than the first Test: this time, after winning the toss, they reached the close of play only one wicket down. A lot of that was owed to an opening partnership of 171, but when Trescothick was dismissed, Hussain built a century partnership of his own with Strauss - who was eventually dismissed for 128. Significant rain on the second day limited the amount of cricket that could be played and meant that England would have to change their gameplan on the third morning. Sure enough, they really got into their shots. It cost the rest of their wickets (mostly to Pollock), but it meant that they had 464 runs on the board and eight more sessions of cricket in which to force a result.

These are very good batting conditions though: even an early wicket from Hoggard (Gibbs, bowled for 7) wasn't enough to put them into any real trouble. Instead, Smith and Rudolph set about grinding down the English advantage. They took the total to 150 before Swann was able to break the partnership; he and Flintoff then added two more wickets in something of a mini comeback. The middle-order duo of van Jaarsveld and Amla added 49 runs each, but by the fourth afternoon nobody was talking about them: instead, a dynamic century from AB de Villiers put the world on notice that a real batting prodigy had arrived. South Africa's total of 413 had put them right back in the game, although the draw was by now a strong bookies' favourite.

Nobody seemed to have told Hussain's England side though: another sublime batting effort from Marcus Trescothick saw the English lead grow in leaps and bounds, especially during his century partnerships with Flintoff (51) and Read (51*). But then, an hour into the fifth day, Nasser Hussain did something truly unexpected: he declared the English second innings, setting South Africa a very gettable 313 to win in roughly five hours.

Jimmy Anderson got the push for a win off to a perfect start: Graeme Smith clean bowled by the third ball of the innings. Immediately, Gibbs and Rudolph shut up shop: it was clear that the South Africans were not prepared to risk losing in order to force a win. England were though: they added more and more close catchers, left more and more gaps and still the South Africans didn't play their shots. They did lose their wickets though: all five of the English bowlers claimed at least one, Anderson and Swann with two each, as the South Africans fell to 158 for seven with five overs left in the day. But that was as close as England could get: Pollock and Boje are still proper batters, and they were able to hold out until the close of play to claim their rain-assisted draw.

Spoiler: Barrington Medal Points

I've also included a Player of the Season award in the style of the Allan Border Medal - the Barrington Medal.

Spoiler: Points system

Drawn or lost match
Best player - 3 points
2nd best player - 2 points
3rd best player - 1 point

Won match
Best player - 5 points
2nd best player - 3 points
3rd best player - 2 points
4th best player - 1 point

Standings
1. Graeme Swann - 6 points (+1)
=. Marcus Trescothick - 5 points (+3)
3. Nasser Hussain - 3 points
4. Matthew Hoggard - 2 points (+2)
5. Andrew Flintoff - 1 point