Lord’s Test: Bazball crumbles as South Africa hand Ben Stokes 1st defeat as England captain
South Africa captain Dean Elgar has walked the talk. The experienced skipper had said, in the lead up to the Test series opener at Lord’s, that he is confident that his team would be able to seize crucial moments and not let England run away with the momentum as they did against New Zealand and India earlier in the summer. And the Proteas did exactly that over 2-and-a-half days at the iconic Lord’s as they hammered England by an innings and 12 runs.
South Africa’s fiery pace attack dented the much-talked-about Bazball approach as England never really had any momentum with the bat, getting bowled out for 165 and 149 after the visitors took a lead of 161 runs.
England vs South Africa, 1st Test Day 3 Updates
It was also the first defeat for Ben Stokes as England’s full-time Test captain and head coach Brendon McCullum, who took over at the start of the summer. England had headed into the series, flaunting their ‘Bazball’ approach, after having won 4 Tests on the trot but they were comfortably outplayed by a spirited South African team.
South Africa took a 1-0 lead in the 3-match series and consolidated their top spot in the World Test Championship table. Notably, Dean Elgar’s men have not lost a series so far in 2022, having beaten India 2-1 at home, drawn a series 1-1 in New Zealand and hammered Bangladesh 2-0 at home.
RABADA LEADS STUNNING SHOW
Kagiso Rabada was the pick of the South African attack as he finished with 7 wickets, including a 5-wicket haul in the first innings. The senior paceman was named as the Player of the Match after he got onto the Lord’s honourboards.
Equally impressive was Anrich Nortje who did not compromise on pace despite going for a few. Nortje dismissed Jonny Bairstow, the architect of England’s Bazball approach, in both the innings to peg back the England side.
Nortje took three wickets in the space of 10 balls to rip through the heart England on Friday, removing Jonny Bairstow (18 runs), opener Alex Lees (35) and Ben Foakes (0).
He was ably backed up by fellow quicks Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi and Rabada while spinner Keshav Maharaj proved a surprisingly successfully early inclusion into the attack, taking the first two wickets before lunch with Zak Crawley (13) and Ollie Pope (5) both trapped leg before wicket.
Joe Root was the first to go after lunch as he edged Ngidi to slip for six runs followed by Nortje’s quick trio of scalps as South Africa took a firm grip on the game.
But England captain Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad took on the bowlers in a ‘Bazball’ cameo to score 55 runs off 45 runs for the seventh wicket to offer hopes of a home fightback before Broad was snagged by Rabada for a quickfire 35.
