Dom Sibley's maiden Test fifty lays platform for England

Joe Root said in the days before England arrived in New Zealand at the end of last year that he wanted his batsmen to "be prepared to play some attritional cricket" after batting "in fast-forward" under Trevor Bayliss. On the third day of the Newlands Test, it appeared his top order had taken that message to heart, as they ground out a substantial lead thanks primarily to Dom Sibley's unbeaten 85.
England had seized the Test by the scruff of the neck during the dramatic end to the second day, when South Africa lost five wickets for 58 runs to turn 157 for 4 into 215 for 8, and James Anderson took the two remaining wickets in just 14 deliveries to finish with a five-wicket haul.



And after Zak Crawley's frenetic 25, Sibley went about blunting a lacklustre South African attack, putting on partnerships of 73 with Joe Denly and 116 alongside Root to give England an imposing 264-run lead by the close with six second-innings wickets remaining.

Anderson made short work of the tail in the morning, removing Kagiso Rabada with a textbook outswinger with the first ball of the day and enticing Anrich Nortje into prodding at a ball outside his off stump to give England a 46-run lead.

That dismissal was statistically significant, too: it gave Stokes his fifth catch of the innings, making him the first England outfielder to complete that feat, and put Anderson out in front of Ian Botham as the man with the most five-wicket hauls for England, with 28. Anderson's now has 102 wickets at 20.67 since his 35th birthday, and was the first 37-year-old to take a five-for for England bowling seam-up since Freddie Brown in 1951.

The early stages of England's second innings were dominated by a fiery duel between Zak Crawley and Rabada. After overpitching twice in his first over and being punished by England's rookie opener, Rabada began to steam in, as though he had taken the boundaries personally, and smacked Crawley on the helmet via the bicep in his third over having struck him in the ribs in his second.
Two balls after that blow, Rabada appeared to offer some choice words on Crawley's technique after a 91mph back-of-a-length ball which thudded into the splice, and did so again following his next delivery, a sharp bouncer which struck the batsman on the shoulder.

And while Crawley clipped another full toss to the boundary, it was Rabada who had the last laugh, pushing an outswinger slightly wide of the off-stump channel and drawing an edge as the batsman looked to unfurl his cover drive.

But that battle aside, South Africa looked a shadow of the fit, fierce attack that got the better of England at Centurion, with Maharaj resorting to leg-theory early on in his spell and the seamers failing to extract much life from the pitch. It was suggested that the cooler, cloudier conditions meant the crack that had opened up outside the right-hander's off stump from the Wynberg End had less effect, but Faf du Plessis' uninspired captaincy contributed to the tameness of the effort.

Sibley started slowly, playing primarily through the leg side and digging in to reach 29 off 93 balls before first bringing out his cover drive off Rabada in the 34th over. He found support in Joe Denly, whose innings of 31 was characteristically stubborn, albeit lacking in any real fluency.

Denly again faced 100 balls - only Marnus Labuschagne (10 times) has done so more often than Denly (eight) since the start of 2019 - and set up the innings for England's middle order. A lofted four down the ground off Maharaj aside, he was largely subdued as his partnership with Sibley sucked the life out of the hosts' attack, and it came as something of a surprise when he swatted a Nortje bouncer down the throat of Dwaine Pretorius at long leg.

Sibley batted with growing confidence alongside Root, as the pair started to score more positively after tea. Particularly strong off his pads and against anything short, Sibley crunched Maharaj for four through point to push the lead past 200 - given his struggles against left-arm spin in his career to date, it was the sign of a man starting to feel at home in an England shirt.

Root was delicate, sweeping, paddling and nudging his way past fifty while looking in fine touch, and it took a ball that bounced sharply out of the crack and found his outside edge from Pretorius in the final half-hour to dislodge him; it was the third time in this match that the allrounder had struck with the new ball imminent.

One wicket soon brought another, as Nortje removed Dom Bess for a pair. Nortje's bouncer from round the wicket brushed the nightwatchman's glove on its way through to Quinton de Kock, confirmed on review, to offer South Africa a flicker of hope, but seemed only to further expose the underuse of the fastest bowler in the match by du Plessis.