England trail South Africa by 123 runs at lunch on Day 3 of the first cricket test match at Lords in London. Earlier South Africa were bowled out for 326 in their first innings for a lead of 161 runs.
England batted for an hour before lunch and were reduced to 38 for the loss of two wickets.
Keshav Maharaj had Zak Crawley out leg before wicket and before that, there was a dropped catch in the field by Keegan Petersen.
Maharaj then took the valuable scalp of Ollie Pope, LBW on review with the last ball before lunch.
Maharaj also claimed the wicket of Ollie Pope, who had top scored in England’s first innings, with the last ball of the morning session to leave the tourists holding the upper hand in the test.
Alex Lees was 12 not out at lunch, with Joe Root next to join him.
South Africa missed the chance for an even earlier breakthrough when Lees nicked to slip but a diving Keegan Petersen dropped the chance in the third over.
Crawley’s future in the England team has been under a cloud and an average of 22.25 after 35 innings as test opener will have the selectors reconsidering his place in the team ahead of the next two tests in the series.
Maharaj was brought on to bowl surprisingly early in the innings by South Africa captain Dean Elgar in what proved a clever tactic, despite the arsenal of fast bowlers at his disposal.
Earlier, South Africa’s lanky fast bowler Marco Jansen fell short of his half century before his side were bowled out, dismissed on 48 as South Africa moved from their overnight score of 289-7 in response to England’s first innings tally of 165.
Jansen added seven runs to his overnight score but helped keep England in the field for the first hour of play as he and Anrich Nortje added 29 runs for the ninth wicket before a thick edge saw him caught in the slips off Stuart Broad (3-71).
Kagiso Rabada was out third ball of the day as he pulled the ball leg side, only for Broad to pluck it one-handed out of the air for a brilliant catch. Nortje was 28 not out off 42 balls.-Additional reporting by Reuters
