It is “the world’s most beautiful cricket stadium” in the eyes of many cricketers and fans as well as the Western Province Cricket Association - provided you ignore the chimneys of the brewery at midwicket, and look above it to the grandeur of Table Mountain. The air is so fresh too, without Durban’s humidity.
Newlands affords the spectator with one of the most spectacular views imaginable
Sometimes there is an obvious explanation for such sequences. England have never won a Test in Antigua for a reason which can be largely summed up in two words: Viv Richards. England have won once in 13 Tests at Perth because the bounce has been too much.
But there is nothing ostensible to stop England pressing ahead after their win in Durban and going 2-0 up. South Africa are in disarray: listless, artless and Steyn-less. Yes, Newlands has been their stronghold: they have not lost to any country here except Australia since their readmission to Test cricket in 1992, and Alastair Cook was right to call it “their kind of home of cricket”. But in this period they have lost four times to Australia, and England under their Australian coach are playing a similar brand of cricket.
Peter May (right, pictured with Richie Benaud in 1959) is the last England captain to have won a Test at Newlands
If England’s players were to tighten their grip on this series by winning here, they would do much to allay one of their captain’s chief concerns: their inconsistency. In three of their past four series – in the West Indies, and at home to New Zealand and Australia - they have followed up a fine victory with a clunking defeat, and Cook has to break this pattern if England are to climb the rankings.
Cook said publicly that he had not got to the bottom of why England had been so inconsistent. Yet some of the answers are apparent; and they point to England’s batsmen becoming too tentative, too keen to hang on to a lead, instead of keeping their foot on the accelerator.
In Barbados, after the victory in Grenada, Cook himself was guilty of batting too slowly when he broke his drought of Test centuries. He let Marlon Samuels wheel away with his phantom off-spinners, and England had an inadequate first-innings total on the board when they were snuffed out by Jerome Taylor and the second new ball.
At Headingley, after the victory at Lord’s, England’s batsmen collectively allowed New Zealand’s off-spinner Mark Craig to tie them down. New Zealand’s batsmen went after Moeen Ali, and took him for four an over in the freezing wind, but Craig pegged England down to two an over.
At Lord’s against Australia, after the victory in Cardiff, England were guilty by their own admission of thinking too much about their opponents and how they would bounce back, instead of concentrating on their own game. But it was also the case that England lacked energy in the field from the moment they lost the toss on a flat wicket and James Anderson was so off colour that he was cautioned for running on the pitch in his first over.
This time, after England’s 241-run victory in Durban, South Africa have rectified some obvious faults. Yet cracks remain in their side, and they are wider than the ones in the Newlands pitch, which should hold together until the heat widens them.
The home side have brought in Quinton de Kock, a fresh-faced keeper and left-handed strokeplayer, so AB de Villiers can concentrate on his batting at No4. South Africa, often the world’s best at fielding, were unusually listless in the field in Durban without a motivating keeper.
James Anderson participated fully in the New Year's Day training session and net practice
Their former captain Graeme Smith was brought inside the tent on New Year's Day as a consultant until the end of this series. His media criticisms of South Africa must henceforth be tempered. What is in it for him is that he can make his first moves towards becoming the next head coach.
But it was too late for Smith to influence the strategy or pitch. With a little low cunning South Africa would have played to their traditional strengths: they would have dropped their off-spinner Dane Piedt, whom England are milking merrily, and relied on their part-time spinners.
They would have greened up the middle of the Newlands pitch – the length favoured by Morne Morkel and their new recruit, the tall and hefty chest-on Hardus Viljoen (they wait to see how Kyle Abbott reacts overnight, just as England were with Anderson and his right calf) – and they would have played double-or-quits on their own terms.
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