'Bazball' meets its Kryptonite: South Africa's attack and the moving ball

South Africa had been warned. And so, after the audacity of England’s four-run chases against New Zealand and India, when Dean Elgar won the toss on the first morning at Lord’s, he resolved that the hosts would not be allowed to chase again.

This was the first glimpse, perhaps, of how South Africa were newly prepared for England. Before the series, Elgar had made clear his belief in the limitations of ‘Bazball’, saying that he didn’t see “longevity” in these methods. Inserting England to bat first on the opening morning of a Test for the first time since Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes took over allowed South Africa to present a new challenge.

Test cricket is 145 years old, a game that has been analysed forensically. England’s buccaneering approach to those run chases came like a sudden sound in a still night. For opponents, this shattered the sport’s old orthodoxies - moving the game into less familiar, altogether more disorientating, ground. Experienced, highly accomplished Test cricketers - Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami - were left facing situations of the ilk they had very seldom met with a red ball. But by the time Elgar led his team onto the Lord’s turf, South Africa had had six weeks to size up England’s new plans.

Compared to New Zealand and India earlier this summer, South Africa had two other salient advantages. The first was the ball. The Dukes ball had gone unusually soft in the first four Tests of the summer, leading to captains constantly trying to have it changed. But Dukes have issued a new set of balls; Dilip Jajodia, the owner of Dukes, is convinced that they will not lose their shape as easily. The evidence of the start of the opening Test against South Africa suggests that he could be proved right.

Elgar’s other advantage was the attack that he had at his disposal. Thanks to a combination of injury and curious team selection, both New Zealand and India had conspicuous weak lines that England exploited. Michael Bracewell, the locum black caps spinner, conceded six runs an over in the series, while Mohammad Siraj and Shardul Thakur were both even more expensive in India’s Test.

England might have longed to meet these bowlers again when Elgar tossed the ball to his second change on the first morning at Lord’s to Anrich Nortje: South Africa’s burly pace bowler, who was clocked at 94 mph soon after. In the space of his nine overs, Nortje delivered the 16 fastest deliveries of this Test summer.

The 32 overs at Lord’s highlighted the depth of the challenge that awaits England. South Africa’s pace quartet are not merely all very good, but wonderfully contrasting: the swing of Lungi Ngidi, the hostility and pace of Nortje, and the awkward left-arm trajectory of Marco Jansen, who combined bounce and swing from over the wicket to snare Joe Root. Underpinning them all is Kagiso Rabada, the attack leader, whose lithe, economical run-up conceals the venom that awaits batsmen at the other end. Using the slope to take the ball away from Zak Crawley and into Alex Lees, he dissected both openers’ techniques before dismissing them in his opening spell.

The upshot was that, during the truncated opening day, England’s batsmen faced their most testing passage of the summer. As well as the pace and variety they confronted, England had to contend with markedly more movement than they have encountered all summer. During the first 30 overs, the ball seamed more than in any previous England innings this summer, and swung the second most.

Stokes had vowed that, even in more testing batting conditions, England would retain their zeal to attack.  If Crawley was more circumspect than earlier in the summer, England’s underlying approach remained unchanged, as embodied by Lees slashing his sixth ball over the slips and Ollie Pope getting off the mark by shuffling down the wicket. While only two of England’s six wickets - Lees’s waft to Rabada, and Jonny Bairstow’s booming drive against Nortje - were with attacking shots, the day provided a reminder of the dangers of England’s approach against the moving ball, as Andrew Strauss acknowledged.

“Days like today and this morning are a great example of how difficult it can be,” he said. “You can't play with gay abandon because the odds aren't in your favour and it is about that balance as an individual and as a team.”

Even amid England’s exhilarating Test summer, there have been warnings of the perils of attacking the new ball: they lost seven wickets for 41 against New Zealand on the opening day at Lord’s and were 69-4 in the second innings, collapsed to 55-6 in their first innings at Headingley and slumped to 83-5 against India at Edgbaston. Against bowling as good as South Africa’s, of course, a more restrained approach might merely have amounted to choosing a slower death. But the opening day at Lord’s added to the sense that attacking the older ball will prove the most sustainable aspect of Bazball.