Thursday 7th August 2008
Eventful return for Harmison
Andrew Flintoff made the only breakthrough on a frustrating morning at The Oval for new England captain Kevin Pietersen by bringing a halt to South Africa's opening stand in the final npower Test.
England's key all-rounder struck in the 20th over to remove Neil McKenzie and halt a 56-run opening partnership after the tourists rode their luck to make a solid start to the opening session.
Having lost the first toss of his tenure as England's 78th Test captain, Pietersen would have hoped his five-man attack could make an early impact on a bouncy Oval wicket.
But having missed two opportunities, England were restricted to just one wicket when rain halted the opening session with South Africa on 64 for one after 21.5 overs.
Pietersen showed an intention to stamp his own mark on the team by scrapping the team huddle on the pitch before the start of play which was popular during Michael Vaughan's reign as captain.
He almost, however, got off to a dream start after giving the first over to the recalled Steve Harmison, who was playing his first Test since March.
Exploiting the natural bounce of the Oval pitch, Harmison provoked South African captain Graeme Smith into cutting the first ball of the day off the back foot.
It was a shot Smith failed to control and it flew straight to Alastair Cook in the gully, but he fumbled the regulation catch and gave South Africa an early reprieve.
Cook's error was a mistake England could have done without, with Smith going on to forge another determined partnership with McKenzie which was only broken shortly before rain halted play.
Smith punished anything short and hit six boundaries in his unbeaten 40, but was far from fluent and was fortunate to escape on 26 when he edged Flintoff behind and Cook could only get a fingertip to it diving at full stretch from third slip.
The South Africa captain also edged just short of Paul Collingwood at second slip after adding two more runs off Flintoff and seemed a prime candidate to fall before lunch.
But instead of Smith falling, it was McKenzie who fell first when he attempted to drive a wide delivery from Flintoff and edged to Cook at third slip, a chance which this time he took.
Less than two overs later the rain which had threatened all morning finally broke to send the players scurrying off the field for an early lunch.
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