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Extraordinary batting

Talk about gravitational waves. They are largely beyond our ken. But the Sunami of runs at Centurion Park earlier this week was nearly as hard to fathom.

When England posted a score of 328 it seemed to be better than par for the ground and conditions. No team with a first innings score over 300 had ever been on the losing side. England lost momentum a little in the last few overs but credit is due to the South African bowlers for that. That they were beaten by 7 wickets with overs to spare is scarcely credible.

Had this deluge of South African runs come from a frenzy of hitting with large slices of luck it would have been easier to understand. But the star performance of Amla and especially deKock owed very little to chance. They were both calculating and respectful of the England attack but the range and power of their batting was beyond anything I have ever seen before.

Amazingly, if you had never seen either of them bat before, it would have been deKock that caught your eye. He stands relatively still, has a precise pick up of the bat and hardly ever plays a totally defensive stroke, so smooth are his movements and so sweet his timing. It is hard to believe that South Africa started the Test Series without him. His trademark shots are the "pick up" over square leg and best of all a back foot, straight bat pull wide of mid-on, often for six. There is none of the brutality we have seen from Stokes.

It is true that there were favourable elements. A smallish ground with a quick outfield helped a bit and the high altitude meant that even "mishits" still cleared the boundary. Of course one has to redefine a mishit these days with modern bats. The super slow motion photography reveals the bat twisting considerably when the hit is not precisely middled but there appears to be very little difference to the way the ball travels.

Amla is more a manoeuverer of the ball but with very quick hands. He walks about the crease a lot giving bowlers choices to try to catch him out, but having to change your line at the last split second is no easy matter.

It would be nice to tell the grand-children that I was actually there to see this incredible episode in the history of batting but I watched every ball on TV and I will never forget it.


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