Test cricket enters a new decade in breathless fashion

Forget Twenty20, we have seen two of the most dramatic Test finishes the decade is likely to produce in only the first week of 2010. Pakistan’s meek run chase in Sydney and South Africa’s failure to bowl England out in Cape Town both have major implications for the series results. Australia are two up with one to play while SA can only draw the series at best.

This is a bitter pill for South Africa to swallow. Regardless of what either side would have said at close of play on the penultimate day, both will have expected SA to clean up on the last and head to Jo’burg level and on a roll. Instead they can only save the series in the final Test and will have to pick themselves up from this potentially shattering failure to take Graham Onions’ wicket for the second time in three Tests. Whereas the first Test at Centurion looked a certain draw until the penultimate session, it was only after lunch on the fifth day that a draw seemed possible here. SA bowled well on the final day, with the exception of the docile Harris. Steyn and Morkel beat the bat often during the pivotal 57-over partnership between Collingwood and Bell but England came out with a plan and, bar a wobble in the last hour, mostly stuck to it. This was a marker of how hard it should be to take wickets when batsmen feel no pressure to score runs and have the discipline not to throw their wicket away.

The low totals of 291 and 273 in the first innings were slightly misleading - there was more bounce in this wicket than in the previous two and Morkel took particular advantage of it but these snorters had a habit of taking the lesser batsmen. As many of the specialists of both sides were guilty of getting out to poor shot selection and apparent laziness, as is so often the case with these two teams. Long hops took at least three first innings wickets, including both Bell and Cook who looked set at the crease. Those who got in, Kallis in particular, showed it was a less unfriendly surface than the stats might suggest. Wickets fell in clusters, notably on the second and third mornings - batting in high pressure requires mental strength above all else...

In Sydney, Pakistan were leading by 206 at the end of the first innings. They were set a target of 175 which would have been less but for indiscipline with the ball and in the field allowing a 9^th wicket partnership of 127 between Mike Hussey and Peter Siddle. Once it appeared that a collapse was possible, it became inevitable. Australia are famed for self-belief while Pakistan threw their last four wickets away for six runs with reckless abandon. This is seen in all sports but is most evident where there is nowhere to hide - in boxing, golf and tennis there are big players who take the initiative, and losers who predictably wilt.

Graeme Smith of South Africa has no personal problems with assertiveness. His brilliant innings of 183 set SA up in a match they looked most likely to lose after day 1 and it would be harsh to criticise his declaration as being conservative. He has a toughness to him that will make this failure to achieve a result all the more perplexing. Another with the "right stuff" is Paul Collingwood, who has become England’s man for this situation, the one batsman in the side who can consistently resist temptation and bat for a draw, 40 runs from 188 balls paying testimony to that. Ian Bell, too, played the right game for the moment and can be proud of his day’s work.

It would have been a different result but for the referral system - Collingwood would have been out first ball, incorrectly given out caught off his hip. This system has created a new phenomenon in the sport - the referral with conviction. If a batsman calls without reflection he surely believes he is safe. This, of course, is amenable to dishonesty in time, but a captain may lose patience in a team-mate who wastes referrals on vanity. However, this system can detract from the emotion of the moment - consider the iconic moments of victory, the celebrating bowler running down the wicket, and then add sixty seconds of uncertainty and bluff. Kasprowicz at Edgbaston, for example, would have surely gone to appeal (and given not-out, incidentally) thus taking away that instantaneous moment of the event and its associated emotion. The Worm likes doubt in sport, the sense of injustice that comes from the belief that "we was robbed", but accepts that he is an old traditionalist who could be branded archaic.

This was a classic, old-fashioned Test with low first innings totals, early relative parity and a breathless climax. There were the inevitable slow sessions but, like a great symphony, these make the impact moments all the better, setting up the pieces for the endgame such that it approaches with an almost unbearable excitement. Not everybody appreciates Test cricket; on days like these, they have my most sincere sympathy.