Sanity prevails at Headingley

2008-07-19 17:12

Cape Town - The wisdom of referrals to the television umpire was spectacularly proved on day one of the second Test between England and South Africa at Headingley.

So instead of another dangerous notch almost certainly being hammered into a fairly swollen list of antagonisms between the two sides from encounters over the past four years or so - and there appeared to have been some thawing in relations this summer - the sizzling of a fresh fuse was probably, touch wood, averted.

The issues in question were two disputed "catches" on a fast-moving, reasonably ding-dong and low-scoring opening day in which the scales ended just a little favourably tilted the Proteas' way.

And the fact that each side found themselves a victim on one occasion, hopefully served further to defuse any possibility of major close-of-play tension.

The first flashpoint came when England's Andrew Strauss, on 23 in the opening session and determined to dig in under the swing-conducive cloud cover, edged Morne Morkel to second slip where AB de Villiers claimed a low catch.

Strauss seemed doubtful it had carried and did not walk as the visiting team celebrated. A television replay was called: it showed beyond all doubt that the fielder had grassed it and the left-handed batsman survived (albeit not for much longer).

But then a similar incident in the final session, with England threatening to claw the game back to a 50-50 situation with a volley of late wickets, favoured the Proteas.

Here Hashim Amla was the batsman, chipping up a delivery from the impressive, back-in-favour Andrew Flintoff to Michael Vaughan, who came running in from a widish mid-off to dive and near-spectacularly scoop the apparent catch.

In this instance Amla, unlike Strauss, assumed the catch had been fairly taken as whooping broke out, and set off a good way to the pavilion before responding to urgent howls from the away-team 'balcony' to return and await a replay.

Umpire Billy Bowden duly called for one and, in a slightly more touch-and-go verdict because Vaughan had a healthy finger or two beneath the ball as it brushed the surface, Amla was ruled not out.

Certainly there was enough doubt to justify the decision, even if the England players looked marginally miffed: it may have been more through frustration as 76/4 in reply to their shaky 203 all out would have represented well nigh even-stevens at that point.

Instead South Africa supped at 101/3 which gave them a fractionally stronger hand even with prize players Graeme Smith (a belligerent 44 before the wily Flintoff got him nicking) and the worryingly tentative, out-of-form Jacques Kallis among the scalps.

Although commentator David 'Bumble' Lloyd correctly observed that this was 'not a 203 all out pitch', referring scathingly to England's sometimes impetuous strokeplay, the fact that the vast majority of the 13 dismissals on the first day were to catches behind the stumps suggested that it is indeed helpful to seamers a good degree and ought largely to remain so if the weather stays iffy, as anticipated.

Certainly there were more fireworks in one day's play at Leeds than for large tracts of the Lord's bore-draw a few days earlier.

But thanks to common sense in the form of use of technology at deeply pertinent moments, those fireworks were generally confined to the cricket itself rather than generated via deep ill-feeling over issues of sportsmanship and decorum.

- Sport24