South Africa bowlers lord over England, win 1st Test

LONDON, August 19

South Africa skittled England out for 149 today to win the first Test by an innings and 12 runs inside three days at Lord’s and go 1-0 up in the three-match series.

It proved an emphatic triumph for South Africa’s bowling attack, who nullified the threat of England’s new attacking batting Bazball approach, forging a 161-run first innings lead before dismissing their hosts in only 37.4 second innings overs.

Anrich Nortje took three wickets in the space of 10 balls to rip through the heart of the home batting, removing Jonny Bairstow (18 runs), opener Alex Lees (35) and Ben Foakes (0) in quick succession with a spell of fast bowling for figures of 3/47.

He was ably backed up by fellow quicks Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi and Kagiso Rabada while spinner Keshav Maharaj proved a surprisingly successfully early inclusion into the attack, taking the first two wickets before lunch with Zak Crawley (13) and Ollie Pope (5) both trapped leg before wicket.

It was another failure for under-pressure Crawley, who was the first to fall for 13 runs and faces being dropped for the next Test at Old Trafford.

Beginning of the fall

Joe Root was the first to go after lunch as he edged Ngidi to slip for six runs followed by Nortje’s quick trio of scalps as South Africa took a firm grip on the game.

But England captain Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad took on the bowlers to score 55 runs off 45 runs for the seventh wicket to offer hopes of a home fightback before Broad was snagged by Rabada for a quick-fire 35. Jansen then castled Matthew Potts for a single run before Stokes (20) hit Rabada down the throat of Maharaj on the boundary to end home hopes.

Rabada’s seven wickets in the Test saw him named Man of the Match.

Captain Dean Elgar said 1the bowlers had to put the ball in the right areas and “the guys did a great job”.

“It was disappointing to lose but South Africa were just better than us, but I don’t want to look too much into it,” added Stokes. — Reuters

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