KEVIN MCCALLUM: You won’t see Faztball much, but not because they are so quick

On Thursday morning, just a few overs into the second day of the first Test between SA and England, Kumar Sangakkara, the great Sri Lankan batter, said SA needed to be a little more careful in how they bowled to Stuart Broad. It had to do with his height and their length, and how they might stray into thinking he was an easy stick to pick up.

Anrich Nortjé had just dug one in short and Broad was credited with four runs by the umpire, who saw a connection between bat and ball that no-one else did. Right, don’t bowl short to Broad. 

Two balls later, up stepped Kagiso Rabada and bowled one a little fuller and a little wider to Ollie Pope, who had come in for high praise from the English media for his batting on day one. Pope chased it, nicked it and was out for 73.   

England’s Bazball met SA’s Fazt-ball. A graphic popped up on Sky Sports shortly before 1pm SA time to show that Rabada had a strike rate of 40.5, the highest since 1900 for anyone who had taken more than 200 wickets.

Dale Steyn was third on the list. Allan Donald a little way down it. That improved just seconds later after he took the wicket of James Anderson to claim the five-for he had been desperate for to wrap up England’s first innings for 165 and to have his name up on the honours board at Lord’s. 

Rabada realised the moment. He knew what it meant to become a part of the history of the home of cricket. It was a moment as grand as that of Makhaya Ntini, who took five in his first dig at Lord’s in 2003, and then became the first South African to get 10 wickets in a Test match here. It was a moment to remember.

But the job, Dean Elgar the SA captain had been at pains to remind in the build-up, is not yet done. The job is more than just answering questions about Baz-ball, a term that divides as much as it excites. Is it gung-ho or positive? Is it T20 over five days, or is it just covering up flaws in technique and boredom with application?

It is not SA who have been eager to talk about “Bazball”, as England captain Ben Stokes said, but the English media. Elgar wondered how Bazball would cope with Fazt-ball. 

“For all that SA had been characterised as being a touch obsessed by ‘Bazball’ — even though they had been simply answering questions put to them during their various media appearances in the run-up to the game — one question Elgar had posed in return had yet to be answered. How, he had wondered, would England’s bold, attacking approach fare against his own bowlers?” wrote Michael Atherton in The Times. 

“It is impossible to say that a definitive answer was provided on a rain-shortened opening day at Lord’s — this is a five-day game and a three-match series and there is a long way to go — but the evidence of a thrilling opening session was that SA’s attack is a potent one and capable of causing problems for a batting line-up that had  enjoyed a bountiful start to the Test summer against New Zealand and India.” 

Atherton wrote that SA have a “seam attack that is wonderfully varied”, with Rabada “the best of them”. Rabada, Nortjé, Marco Jansen and Lungi Ngidi are as fine a line-up as SA has had in its history. It is then just a pity that this wonderful seam attack will not play more Tests.

The ICC’s Future Tour Programme from 2023-2027 again favours India, England and Australia. The ICC was at pains to point that out in its press release this week. England, Australia and India will play more Tests during the cycle than anyone else (“22, 21 and 20 five-day games respectively”). 

That is a great shame and a greater disgrace, as Barney Ronay of the Guardian wrote on Wednesday:  “Perhaps the only real lesson on day one at Lord’s was that SA have a breathtakingly, almost pointlessly fine pace attack. Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen take their wickets at 20, Rabada at 22. This is generational stuff, all fine lines, menace and variation: a perfect Test pace quartet for a nation that really isn’t going to play too many Tests from here.”

Enjoy this attack while you can.