Ken Borland

England were able to cap South Africa’s first-innings lead at 161, but were under real pressure as they lost two early wickets in their second innings, taking lunch on 38/2 on the third day of the first Test at Lord’s on Friday.

Lungi Ngidi and Kagiso Rabada once again produced a top-class display of new-ball bowling, gaining a substantial amount of late movement, as they put openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley through hell. Rabada should have had a wicket in the third over when Lees, on 4*, edged a loose drive which was heading straight into the hands of Aiden Markram at second slip. But Keegan Petersen at third slip showed a lack of good judgement as he dived one-handed in front of Markram and dropped the catch.

Given how much Crawley and Lees had struggled against the seaming and swinging ball, it was a surprise when Proteas captain Dean Elgar introduced left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj as early as the eighth over.

But Maharaj struck with his third ball, relieving Crawley of his torture as he trapped him lbw for 13 as he missed a sweep.

Maharaj then picked up a second wicket on the stroke of lunch, removing first-innings top-scorer Ollie Pope for just 5, also to an lbw decision, albeit on review. Pope shaped to come forward but then went back to work the ball leg-side, which was a fatal error as the ball zipped straight on into his pads.

South Africa began the day on 289/7, leading by 124, and they were rocked early on as Stuart Broad took a sensational catch at wide midwicket, leaping one-handed to dismiss Rabada for 3 on the third ball of the day, bowled by Matthew Potts.

England’s bowlers were over-reliant on the short ball against Marco Jansen and Anrich Nortje, and the pair added another useful 29 runs for the ninth wicket.

Nortje fought his way through the barrage and then played some plucky strokes as he ended with 28 not out, a great contribution down the order.

Jansen, who batted so well in pushing England back when they were on the front foot on the second evening, battled to be as fluent and eventually fell on a career-best 48, edging Broad into the slips.

South Africa were all out for 326 with Broad finishing with 3/71 in 19.1 overs and the ever-reliable Ben Stokes ending with the same figures off 18 overs.

All Blacks coach Ian Foster seemed to burn with righteous indignation when he criticised the New Zealand media for a “vicious onslaught” against him, following his team’s pressure-relieving 35-23 victory over the Springboks at Ellis Park on Saturday evening.

Foster was widely expected to be fired if the All Blacks had suffered a second successive loss to South Africa, which would have been their sixth defeat in seven outings. But his All Blacks team showed glimpses of past glories as they stretched the Springboks out wide with a rapid offload game, won the breakdown battle, stood up well in the set-pieces and defended as if their lives depended on it.

“The stress has been good for me, I guess, I’ve lost one kilogramme,” Foster wryly observed. “It comes with the job but it has been a pretty vicious onslaught, particularly from the New Zealand media.

“Calling them popgun selections I feel is quite insulting to players who are giving their all for their country. But these times are the best test of character.

“I’m intensely proud of that performance. I could not be more proud, to do that at altitude with the game swinging around – there were times we could have won and times we could have lost.

“It was 0-0 for a long time and you could feel it was a real arm-wrestle, but that’s what South Africa are like here. You have to bide your time and we wanted to target the second half and tired legs with the way we wanted to play,” he said.

For the prudish, a Springboks versus All Blacks Test at Ellis Park could be one of the more grosser experiences: the crowd is almost baying for blood, coarse language flows freely and within the first 10 minutes there was a fight in the main grandstand.

But Foster, feeling vindicated, relished the occasion as the All Blacks produced their staple response to the pressures of playing in Johannesburg, notching their fifth win in their last six games there.

“It’s a pretty special occasion and the All Blacks versus Springboks rivalry often generates moments like this. I would like to thank South Africa for their contribution to this amazing spectacle,” Foster said.

“We are very proud to hang on to the Freedom Cup, it is very important to us. The performance today was the result of the last two-and-a-half weeks, this team has reformed and reshaped a bit.

“I saw the same character last week as well, but we did not get the bounce of the ball and did not play well enough. Sometimes a dramatic change just comes from playing more together.

“Long-terms success often starts with adversity. I said last week was our best performance of the year because I saw some signs of competitiveness. This game needs patience, which some people don’t have,” Foster said.

An All Blacks side whose skills let them down in a Test match is certainly not the norm, and flyhalf Richie Mounga admitted on Monday that it was Springbok pressure that led to New Zealand’s error-strewn display in a 26-10 defeat at the Mbombela Stadium at the weekend.

South Africa produced an epic defensive display: their rush off the line, their scrambling and physical dominance of the gain-line; and their aerial mastery and an outstanding performance by the pack in the set-pieces were all too much for the All Blacks as the Springboks recorded their biggest winning margin over their greatest rivals since their 17-0 win in Durban in 1928.

“It was obviously very disappointing for us but it confirmed how good this South African team is,” Mounga said at their Sandton hotel on Monday. “They just build so much pressure.

“With their set-piece, coming round the corner and getting penalties, it just becomes an ongoing cycle that is really difficult to get out of. We’ll have to talk about how to counter that.

“It was just a matter of skill errors. You don’t have to be in the right frame of mind to catch the ball, to do your job or do the basics right. But not doing those put is in that cycle.

“It’s called a Test match for a reason because it will test your skill. It was tough to get around them, their high line put us under big pressure. The things we spoke about in order to combat that, we didn’t do well at all,” Mounga, who is likely to start at flyhalf on Saturday at Ellis Park because Beauden Barrett was injured in his collision with Kurt-Lee Arendse, said.

The classy Crusaders star said the All Blacks are trying to shut out all the outside noise, but he understands why their fans are up in arms.

“We know our fans can get frustrated with results and that is very fair, and it’s fair for them to care,” Mounga said. “We know that our performance was not good enough for All Blacks standard.

“But we don’t care what the fans think, I don’t really care what people think if they’re not in our squad. We are so close, but close is not good enough at this level.

“The Springboks’ game-plan is simple – they build numerous consecutive positive plays and that puts you under pressure. It takes just simple execution to change that.

“The most basic skills we couldn’t execute, but if we can fix that then we can start to put them under pressure. At the moment we’re frustrated because we’re making the same errors,” Mounga said.

South Africa produced a compelling all-round display as they paced their batting perfectly and then fried England’s batsmen in the hot oil of unrelenting pressure from the bowlers and fielders, beating the hosts by a massive 90 runs to win their T20 series in Southampton on Sunday evening.

The Proteas had been sent in to bat and conditions were tough early on for the batsmen as Quinton de Kock was bowled for a duck by David Willey (4-1-25-3) in the first over and there was early movement with the new ball.

But Reeza Hendricks dug in and Rilee Rossouw then blazed 31 off 18 balls to provide some impetus in the powerplay, which South Africa finished on 53/1.

Hendricks, in red-hot form, accelerated to his third successive half-century and went on to score a fine 70 off 50 balls as he and Aiden Markram (51* off 36) built towards the death overs with a fantastically-judged partnership of 87 for the third wicket in 10 overs.

An impressive Markram, David Miller (22 off 9) and Tristan Stubbs, who hit his first two balls for four, then provided the big finish with 50 runs in the last four overs taking the Proteas to an above-par 191/5.

South Africa were outstanding in the field, their bowlers giving nothing away and being backed by superb fielding, led by a magnificent catch by Stubbs to remove Moeen Ali for just 3.

England missed their usual rollicking start as Jos Buttler (14) was outfoxed by the Proteas’ plans and excellent bowling by left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj, and Jason Roy struggled to 17 off 18 balls before Anrich Nortje had him caught behind.

Tabraiz Shamsi then continued his spectacular comeback from the mauling he took in the first game, ripping through England with career-best figures of 5/24.

Fellow spinners Keshav Maharaj (2/21) and Markram, who dismissed Moeen courtesy of an extraordinary catch by Stubbs, running from a widish midwicket towards mid-on and diving full-length to take a one-handed catch as the ball went past him, also contributed. Their success showed that England erred in only giving off-spinner Moeen one over, getting too carried away with match-ups when conditions and a big field favoured the spinners.