Andrew McGlashan provides his Plays of the day from England v South Africa

Andrew McGlashan16-Sep-2007

Albie Morkel – in smashing touch © Getty Images
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Twenty20 is bringing many new facets to the game and the latest seemsto be one-over spells. Nathan Bracken starts with a solitary over forAustralia, but England took it to a whole new level against SouthAfrica. The first six overs each brought a bowling change and therunning order read: Anderson, Broad, Flintoff, Anderson, Broad,Flintoff. Stuart Broad was then given a second over, which equated toan extended spell, but Paul Collingwood’s tactics paid off in thefirst six overs as England took three key wickets. In all, there wereseven bowling changes in the first 10 overs.Remember the middle
When Mark Boucher walked to the crease it was his first bat since thetournament started, and he’d only had one hit in the warm-ups. SouthAfrica’s comfortable victories in the group matches meant most of themiddle order haven’t had much of a outing, but here they were needed.Boucher was soon into his stride with a trademark pull throughmidwicket and his 29 was an important contribution.Snape denied
He is the absolute Twenty20 specialist. Jeremy Snape doesn’t even playfirst-class cricket for Leicestershire anymore and he almosttransferred his success into England colours. Off his fourth ballBoucher swung him out to deep midwicket where James Anderson couldn’thold on, then next ball Luke Wright dropped a simpler offering amidwicket inside the circle. To rub salt into Snape’s wounds, JustinKemp then swept the final ball of the over onto the grass bank at deepsquare-leg. That was his only over.Bat-breaking work
It’s already well known that Kemp hits the ball hard. But when hetried to smash Chris Schofield onto the railway line a chunk of woodflew off the bottom of his bat towards the bowler, while the balltrickled to midwicket. Matt Prior kindly threw the broken piece backto Kemp, but the batsman didn’t have time to change his bat before thenext delivery. It didn’t matter. Boucher kindly picked out KevinPietersen at long-on so the swap could take place.On its way to Pretoria
With South Africa needing something to ignite their innings, AlbieMorkel – who showed his skills against Bangladesh – took the longhandle approach against Schofield’s final three balls. Aiming over theshorter boundary, his first slog-sweep went onto the railway track andis now on its way to Pretoria, while the next two weren’t far away.One bounced on the canopy above the stand and another finished wellback into the seats at long on. The TV company broadcasting theTwenty20 is now using Hawkeye to measure all the sixes. Morkel’s blowonto the tracks is No. 1.Elbowed out
Pietersen doesn’t do much quietly. He was greeted with boos ringingaround Newlands as he strode to the crease, but quickly silenced themwith a delightful clip through midwicket. However, when he pushed theball towards Ntini at short fine leg and set off for a single a chaotic few momentsensued. Pietersen, watching the ball, raced down the middle of thepitch and careered into Shaun Pollock. In the process his bat gottangled in Pollock’s legs and was dropped. A tumbling Pietersen thencrashed through the crease as the throw hit the stumps. He climbed upclutching his elbow to find he’d been run-out and left the arena withcheers rocking the ground.A few words
Morne Morkel is a fiery young quick bowler and it isn’t only his paceand bounce which give him that tag. He isn’t afraid of having a fewwords, either. After a rapid first over he followed through towardsPrior, who has been known to give out a few chirps here and there, andthere was a brief verbal bout. It appeared fairly one-way traffic andclearly Morne was suggesting somewhere for a post-match beverage.If you thought that was big
A couple of paragraphs up from here you will read how Albie Morkel’ssix off Schofield was the biggest in the World Twenty20. With England falling further behind theasking rate, Owais Shah swung Vernon Philander out of the ground overdeep midwicket, nearly doing himself an injury in the process. IfMorkel’s blow landed on the train line, Shah’s was heading for thebrewery. It looked a longer strike although wasn’t confirmed by the TV gadgets.