Well seeing someone I'd never heard of in the team was a bit of a shock! I like to think I know a fair bit about English cricket. If I was Tremlett I'd be pretty narked right now.
Tremlett has 13 wickets in three Tests, Broad has 18 in seven Tests at a high average, so Tremlett is probably already "pretty narked". Clearly Broad can bat, trouble is England need WICKETS from their bowlers and now Pattinson is making his debut so two of the long sought after five man attack have NINE caps between them and a whopping 18 wickets
Terrible batting display, then again I said on BBC before the collapse that the tail began at six. (well it was out well before six, before they took tea in fact) And a lot of people harped on about Flintoff not being able to take the strain in a four man attack, well he's bowled a third of the overs so far and Lancashire haven't been using him sparingly either. The fact is the captain will use his most effective bowlers first, and that means we may as well only play four bowlers because the least effective will only bowl when everything else has failed - by which time we may well be heavily in arrears.
BUT, England have done the minimum to keep in the match. 100/1 or 100/2 would have been heavily in favour of the South Africans chasing 200, 100/3 is still in the game with 7 wickets for around 100 runs a possibility for today. 100/4 or 100/5 might have been too much to hope for, they're halfway to our 1st innings total, we're halfway through their better batsmen. Target for today has to be 150/5 or 150/6 and then if they get to 200 we should need to have at least seven down.
Anything much more than a 25-50 run deficit on 1st innings and we're in trouble. This is Vaughan's 50th Test as captain, here's his record as captain when we've been behind :-
Vaughan as captain (1st innings deficit)
P20 W4 D8 L8
Recoveries to win
- Won from 8 runs behind against South Africa (2004/5)
- Won from 65 runs behind against New Zealand (2004)
- Won from 65 runs behind against West Indies (2004)
- Won from 179 runs behind against New Zealand (2008)
Three of the four recoveries came against the weaker Test nations, the other only a small deficit. On the flip side of the coin Vaughan has lost only one Test having had a 1st innings lead - Sri Lanka 2006/7 (93 runs)
It isn't over yet, but to keep in with a chance of winning we need them out within touching distance. England under Vaughan have had the lead on 1st innings over South Africa in five out of ten Tests and won only four out of the ten Tests - one from behind.
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