By Neil Manthorp.
@PA.
South Africa’s left-arm spinner, Keshav Maharaj, claimed two quick wickets shortly before lunch to leave England reeling on 38-2 and still trailing by 123 runs at lunch on the third day of the first test at Lord’s on Friday.
Maharaj trapped both Zak Crawley (13) and first innings top-scorer Ollie Pope (5) lbw to reach the break with the remarkable figures of 3-0-6-2.
Opener Crawley missed an ill-advised sweep shot in Maharaj’s first over while Pope played across the line on the back foot and was surprisingly given not out by umpire Richard Illingworth only for the tourists to review the decision with replays showing the ball to be hitting the top of leg-stump.
Alex Lees, who was dropped by Keegan Peterson at third slip off the bowling of Kagiso Rabada on four, will resume after the break on 12 with Joe Root set to join him.
Earlier Anrich Nortje scored an unbeaten and potentially important 28 to frustrate England’s bowlers and help the tourists add 39 runs before they were bowled out for a total of 326 and a first innings lead of 161.
Resuming on 289-7 the tourists batted for another hour with Nortje’s runs coming from 42 deliveries with four boundaries including a couple of glorious straight drives and a delicate late cut to the third boundary of England captain Ben Stokes.
Rabada (3) departed to the third ball of the day when his well-timed pull shot against seamer Matty Potts was sensationally caught, one-handed, by Stuart Broad at mid-on but Marco Jansen, 41 not out overnight, sensibly took the singles which were on offer and trusted Nortje’s defence.
Having moved to within two runs of a half-century with seven singles, however, Jansen made his first error driving at a wide ball from Broad and edging to Zak Crawley at second slip. His excellent 48 came from 79 balls and contained four boundaries and a six all scored on the second evening.
Nortje was ungainly but defensively efficient against a barrage of short deliveries from Stokes, Potts and Broad and even more efficient with his drives when the ball was pitched up. He might have done even more damage to England’s chances of regaining a foothold in the match had Lungi Ngidi (0) not edged his sixth ball to Bairstow at third slip who initially dropped the catch before grabbing the rebound.
Broad and Stokes returned identical analyses of 3-71.
ENGLAND: Alex Lees, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (capt), Ben Foakes (wk), Matty Potts, Jack Leach, Stuart Broad, James Anderson
SOUTH AFRICA: Dean Elgar (capt), Sarel Erwee, Keegan Petersen, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi.