How the hell has that ground dried so quickly.........it looked like a boating lake an hour ago and now bar the bowlers run ups it's as dry as a bone.

Looks like there may be another hour+ for SA to pile on some more runs

Am the only who thinks Smith should have walked? Yes the umpire should have given it out but Smith is the only person who knows for sure he hit it?

I wouldn't walk so I can't blame Smith for it but his excuse for not walking was laughable! He said he didn't think he'd hit it and the only noise he could think it might have been was his glove hitting against the bat handle!

His gloves must be made of wood.

I think we'd have had a pretty good day if we'd got Smith early. His wicket added to the walking wicket(at the moment) of Prince would have had them 36/2 and in a touch of trouble. The pressure on them would have been alot greater at that point.

Harper is an idiot.

More like an idiot umpire who can't work a volume control.

And no, I was never a walker. Though my 'running' style was akin to a leisurely Sunday stroll...

Bit of an understatement that one....Apart from the second test, when England really put their game together, the South Africans have been pretty dominant.

England have constantly been chasing the game, mainly due to some poor batting, and without sounding overly negative, 1-1 will slightly flatter an England side which seems to lack any true world-class performers.

Life ater Freddie is proving pretty uninspirational to watch....Broad, despite his supposed better stats, is frustratingly inconsistant, and definitely lacks the sheer presence that the big fella had, and which he held psychologically over his opponents.

It's periods like today and the cape town test when Smith and Amla have been coasting along that we miss Freddie the most. He was at his best when given the ball in situations like that when the pressure and responsibility to lift the team was on his shoulders. The balance of the side is really struggling aswell and an extra bowler against the Aussies next year is a must however we work the formula out. Having 6 batters is all well and good but i get the feeling a few of them see it as a reason not to put maximum effort and concentration into an innings in the hope that one of the other players will get a score from somewhere.

I agree with Broad by the way. He's got talent but shows it only in fits and bursts and needs to be more consistant like you say. He'd have been the man i'd have left out for Sidebottam in this match if they were that desperate to bring him in. I'd have loved to have seen Onions bowl on this pitch..................i get the feeling he'd have finally got the rewards from this pitch he's deserved for his efforts in the series.

Amla gone. 2nd over of the day.

Kallis gone. 3rd over of the day

4/217

Duminy gone too.

273-5 - lead of 93.

Should be 6 down but once again Harper makes a poor call. De Villiers was given out and not once did Harper use the really slow motion replay which shows the ball hitting the glove aswell as the pad. The guy is completely clueless!

Just heard about the De Villiers incident!

Unbelievable stuff from Harper although i suppose given it's him that should read 'usual stuff from Harper'.

We've been well and truely ripped off in this game and in terms of the review system we've been on the bad end of it all series.

There is a chance it hit the bat on the way out too. Iam all for reviews but the technology needs standardising with snicko and hotspot included. Iam surprised when the broadcasters say they cant afford snicko and hotspot.

Until every country can provide every bit of the technology they shouldn't be using the review system imo.

Michael Vaughan reckons the ICC should be putting the cash up to provide everything and not the countries host broadcaster.

Losing Amla and Duminy ultimately helped SA as mentioned by Hussain I think it was. They're really pushing on now and will probably declare before tea. With the good drainage system helping reduce delays, England are really staring down the barrel unless they knock off five wickets extremely quickly.

Come on you storm



Hopefully the rest of today will be washed out and then if we have similar weather for the next couple of days as they've had for the past we might only have to survive 4 sessions which is less then we'd held out for before in this series.........................I can dream

We had to get Smith out twice and it took us 4 go's to get de Villiers finally out...there's an extra 3 wickets and countless number of runs we could have had...the luck most certainly hasnt been ours in this match.

Howver it wasnt bad luck when we were batting (apart from Cooks dismissal) it was rank bad batting, yet again.

And with regards to Stuart Broad - he's still only 23 years old. How old was Flintoff when he became a pivotal figure for England?? It certainly wasn't when he was only 23.

I think this morning should serve as the final nail in the coffin of the present referal system.

My main gripe with the whole thing is the ridiculous situation where a side is limited in the amount of referals they can make....Just look at the farcical situation with De Villiars 'dismissal' off Sidebottom, where there was the most blatent edge through to the keeper, which the unpire shockingly missed....Because England have run out of referals we have to just sit back and accept it, yet supposedly the whole referal system was brought in to flag up obviously poor decisions like that.

People say that having unlimited referals will lead to teams just constantly appealing against decisions?....Well, the obvious way to deter this would be to award penalty runs to the opposition if referals are found to side with the umpire's original decision....Thus, this morning England would have had De Villiars out a lot earler than he eventually was.

At the moment the main problem is that captains aren't sure whether to 'waste' a referal over a potentially borderline decision, which means that the whole thing is turning into a lottery, instead of being what it should be, and that is the simple act of correcting a human error on the umpire's part.

Strauss gone for 22.

Eng 48/3 after only 12 overs, still trail by 195 runs.

Game Over.

Pietersen gone for 12.

Collingwood taking them on.

Hopefully they'll get knocked off soon and I'll get off work early.

3 wickets for 1 run

Eng 111/7

50 for Collie, the usual gutless rubbish from the rest.

All over with

Nice to see the batsmen's union spokesman Atherton citing South Africa's superior pace attack as the difference in this game. Of course it was, Athers. The batsmen should shoulder none of the blame at all. 100%.

That's an embarrassing result. I get the impression our players are mentally exhauseted/not tough enough. It seems no coincidence that Collingwood (who comes across as the toughest character), Swann (most confident) and Sidebottom (freshest, after sitting out the first three Tests) seem to have been amongst our most effective performers in this match.

Pietersen is totally out of sorts and Trott (ludicrously overhyped as the finished article and a long teerm fixture after a fantastic debut) seems to have gone the same way as Bopara. Hopefully he'll have the strength to come again.

Overslept, but sounds like I missed next to f--- all

On the balance of play we would have been very fortunate to win the series and would have risked becoming over confident. 1-1 would have been an acceptable result before the series started. A mixed bag of performances, whch reflects our current level.

Of course the batsman have to shoulder most of the blame for this inept performance.....However, I think Atherton's point is quite correct in the fact that, as a batsman, during this present match especially, which pace attack would you choose to face, for an easier time of it??

Our pace attack has zero hostility at present....Without Flintoff and an in form Harmison, all we have is 3 guys who need conditions 100% in their favour before they even border on being half decent.....SA had Steyn & Morkel, who for the last 2 tests have looked the most potent and dangerous pair in World cricket.

As I pointed out at the start of this series, until we find a serious World class bowler, then great displays like the second test are going to be quite rare, and we are going to spend most of our time watching mediocre stuff like we served up for most of this series.