This blog wasn't very complimentary about Ryan Sidebottom after the second day of the third test at Edgbaston. Yet it turns out that the ludicrouly-barneted Nottinghamshire seamer has a use after all.
With South Africa resuming on 256-6 and with a first innings lead of 25, it was Sidebottom who took the key wicket of Ashwell Prince. Prince has scored centuries in each of the first two test matches, but fell caught behind by Tim Ambrose off Sidebottom for 39. That left the Proteas on 264-7 and helped England restrict the tourists' first innings lead to 83.
Prince's departure brought Morne Morkel to the crease, but he was trapped lbw by James Anderson for 18 to leave South Africa on 293-8. Mark Boucher provided stout resistance but when Andre Nel was bowled by Sidebottom for a duck the veteran wicket-keeper batsman decided to lift the tempo, eventually skying one to Michael Vaughan for 40. South Africa ended their first knock on 314 all out.
Enter England's batsmen for the second time. It looked rather ominous when Alistair Cook inexplicably top-edged Makaya Ntini skywards for Boucher to run around and make the catch. At 15-1 the home side were in trouble, and it got worse when Vaughan produced another spectacular failure, caught at mid-off by Hashim Amla for 17 to leave England 39-2. The pendulum swung back towards England when Kevin Pietersen arrived at the crease after Vaughan's dismissal, but not before Andrew Strauss was caught at slip by Jaques Kallis off the bowling of Morkel for 25. Ian Bell could not recapture his first innings form, giving it away Cook-style as he wafted one high in the air on 20 for Boucher to gratefully accept.
Few had little faith in Paul Collingwood's ability to stay with Pietersen given his dramatic loss of form this summer, but they were wrong. The pair played magnificently to share a 115-run stand, but it all started to go wrong when Pietersen, not out on 94, decided to take the shortest route to his century. In attempting to whack Paul Harris out of Birmingham, Pietersen could only find AB De Villiers at mid-off. The South Africans had reduced England to 219-5 and could sense what a key scalp they had just taken.
Yet the loss of Pietersen did nothing to break the superhuman concentration of Collingwood, who shortly after saw Andrew Flintoff clip one to Amla for just two to leave England 221-6. Joined by Tim Ambrose at the crease Collingwood fought through the end of the day, showing Pietersen the way to bring up a century with a six into the bargain.
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