CAPE TOWN, 3 January 2005 — It may have been another year but it was more of the same for Jacques Kallis as he held South Africa’s innings together on the first day of the third Test against England at Newlands yesterday.
Kallis, who made 1,288 Test runs at 80.50 during 2004, continued in the same form on Sunday making 81 not out as South Africa reached 247 for four at the close of play.
Apart from Kallis, only South African captain Graeme Smith, who hit 74, took advantage of a hard, true pitch after Smith won the toss for the third time in a series which England lead 1-0.
Kallis played another solid innings facing 188 balls and hitting eight boundaries.
At one stage, England were content to contain South Africa’s leading batsman, with Andrew Flintoff bowling well outside the off stump with seven fielders on that side of the pitch.
Smith and Kallis appeared to be playing South Africa into a strong position during a third wicket stand of 75 but the pace of play slowed after Smith was dismissed.
Smith should have been out for 70 when he went on a sweep against left-arm spinner Ashley Giles.
The ball deflected off the bottom edge of his bat onto his pad and looped up for wicketkeeper Geraint Jones to take what seemed an easy catch.
But Smith stood his ground while the players celebrated and umpire Daryl Harper gave him not out.
The South African captain added only four more runs, however, before Giles dismissed him in his next over, with Smith walking after edging a ball which went off Jones’s thigh to Marcus Trescothick at slip.
The momentum of the innings slowed as Boeta Dippenaar (29) helped Kallis add 68 in two hours for the fourth wicket.
Giles ended that partnership, too, when Dippenaar lost patience and went down the pitch to a ball pitched outside leg stump, only for the ball to spin past his bat and bowl him.
Hashim Amla, who scored only one run in two innings in the second Test, had to face the second new ball soon after joining Kallis but survived to the end of the day and scored 21 not out.
Giles was England’s hardest-working and most successful bowler, sending down 24 overs and taking two for 58.
England gained an early advantage when Herschelle Gibbs was out in the third over with just nine runs scored.
The out-of-form Gibbs misjudged the line of a ball from Matthew Hoggard and padded up to a delivery which moved in slightly off the pitch and hit his off-stump.
It was a repeat of his dismissal by Hoggard in the drawn second Test in Durban.
Smith and Jacques Rudolph put on 69 before Rudolph was out for 26 shortly before lunch, caught behind by Geraint Jones off an inside edge from Simon Jones.
Rudolph had twice gained boundaries off the inside edge off the same bowler before his dismissal.
There were two changes in the South African team.
Dippenaar returned in place of Martin van Jaarsveld after missing the second Test because of a knee injury while swing bowler Charl Langeveldt earned his first Test cap, replaced fast bowler Dale Steyn.
Steyn suffered a minor shoulder injury in the Durban Test and selection convenor Haroon Lorgat said the panel did not want to risk further injury.
England batsman Mark Butcher, who had been struggling for form, was replaced by Robert Key after suffering a recurrence of a left wrist injury at nets Saturday.
