
Cricket: England vs South Africa, Second nPower Test, Day Two
5 Jul five's blog | Email this page | 218 reads
The summer of cricket continues on Five as England take on South Africa in a four-match Test series. Join Mark Nicholas and his commentary team Geoffrey Boycott, Simon Hughes and Barry Richards for highlights of the second Test, from Headingley Carnegie in Leeds.
The visit of South Africa to England’s shores represents the major challenge of the summer. With a convincing 2-0 Test series victory over New Zealand behind them, England will be eager to raise their game even further against the Proteas. Spearheaded by skipper and opener Graeme Smith, the South African side features one of the best Test batsmen in the world in Jacques Kallis.
Despite the recent retirement of Shaun Pollock, the pace-bowling attack has developed into a world-class unit in recent times. As well as the fiery Makhaya Ntini, the quartet of quicks will also include Dale Steyn, rated as one of the fastest bowlers in the world; the promising Morne Morkel;and the colourful Andre Nel. Together they are a daunting prospect, and will surely give England’s batsmen some sleepless nights this summer.
England fans, meanwhile, might be treated to the long-awaited comeback of Andrew Flintoff for the start of this Test series following a long injury lay-off. His reappearance will mean that somebody has to go – and it will be up to Michael Vaughan and the selectors to decide whether to play Flintoff at eight as part of a four-man attack, or drop a batsman so that he can come in at his customary position of six. However, with doubts over the player’s batting form, it may be safer to go for the former option.
Easily the most mouthwatering contest of the summer will be that between the South African bowling attack and Kevin Pietersen. The South African-born batsman has yet to face the side from his homeland in a Test match, and South Africa will be salivating at the prospect of getting one over on England’s star batsman...


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