On a day that starkly belonged to the bowlers, with a total of 17 wickets falling, South African batting coach Justin Sammons was left somewhat speechless after his side was bowled out for a meagre 118 runs after just 36.2 overs.
England took a 36-run lead as a result, but their stand with bat are also in the ripples of troubled waters with seven wickets down.
Marco Jansen was notably the pick of the day for the Proteas, having been the top run-scorer (30) and best bowler, producingfigures of 4/34.
However, SA’s shortcomings once again came from the batting unit, with the top-6 all failing in their attempts to lay a foundation. Khaya Zondo was the top-scorer within that bunch, making a below-par 23.
“If we knew the answers to that we probably wouldn’t find ourselves in that position,” Sammons said in response to what went wrong.
“The reality is, we have also got to give the opposition credit – they bowled really, really well – and they got the ball in the right areas about 80 per cent of the time and continually asked questions of us.
“If we were hyper-critical [of the day] our contact points and batter angles could have been better. It’s not to say we wouldn’t have gotten out to those deliveries, but we would’ve given ourselves a better chance.
“From a technical point-of-view, that’s something we’ve been working on and we’ll continue to do so. We didn’t necessarily give our wickets away through mental errors.
“At the end of the day it was execution and on the day they were better than us,” he said, adding that one skill-set the Proteasbatters have been lacking is their abilities to construct partnerships.
“But for that to happen, individuals need to make their starts count, which unfortunately hasn’t happened on this tour.”
The day got off to an emotionally-captivating start, with ‘God Save the King’ having been sung for the first time in 70 years after the sudden passing of Queen Elizabeth II just two days before. The second day was also cancelled in order to pay homage to news that’d just broke.
That may have, to the very least, played in England’s favourmentally, but Sammons was not going to make any excuses therefrom.
“Everyone in the change room felt the need to pay the necessary respects, so I wouldn’t put it down to that.
“At the end of the day, the change room will only get stronger from experiences like this,” he said, adding that the side is vastly inexperienced and that these toils can be transformed into rewards further down the line.
England are currently 154-7, with Ben Foakes (11*) and Ollie Robinson (3*) at the crease ahead of day 4.
