England close day one of second Test on 111-3, trailing South Africa by 40 after razing Proteas for 151; Zak Crawley battles to 17no from 77 balls and Jonny Bairstow makes unbeaten 38 after early wickets - watch day two on Sky Sports on Friday (10.15am on air, 11am start)
Friday 26 August 2022 09:58, UK
England rolled South Africa for 151 before the battling Zak Crawley and the free-flowing Jonny Bairstow stemmed an early wobble to take the hosts to 111-3 on a 13-wicket opening day of the second LV= Insurance Test at Emirates Old Trafford.
South Africa - fresh from an innings-and-12-run win in the series opener at Lord's last week - crumbled in 53.2 overs after opting to bat under initially cloudy skies as James Anderson (3-32) and Stuart Broad (3-37) shared six wickets amid some lavish seam movement on offer.
The highest stand of the innings was the 35 Kagiso Rabada (36) and Anrich Nortje (10) put on for the ninth wicket from 108-8, once the earlier overcast conditions had been replaced by afternoon sunshine.
England began their innings in glorious weather but still tumbled to 43-3 as Alex Lees (4) and Joe Root (9) were nicked off by Lungi Ngidi and Rabada respectively - Root suffering a third single-figure dismissal in a row - and Ollie Pope (23) was bowled off his inside edge by the rapid Nortje.
Crawley held firm amid the clatter, battling his way to 17 from 77 balls having come into the match averaging 16.40 in Test cricket this summer, sharing an unbroken stand of 68 with the more adventurous Bairstow (38no off 45) as England cut their deficit to 40 runs by stumps.
Earlier on with the ball, England skipper Ben Stokes (2-17) struck twice and Ollie Robinson (1-48) also impressed on his return to the side for the first time in seven months, having been preferred to Matthew Potts in the XI.
Robinson was denied the wicket of South Africa captain Dean Elgar for 10 in the morning after overstepping - Pope's lunging one-handed grab at short leg coming in vain - but finally claimed a deserved wicket when he pinned Nortje lbw from the first delivery of the final session.
After England collapsed at Lord's, razed for 165 and 149 in a combined 82.4 overs, it was South Africa who malfunctioned in Manchester on Thursday morning - they were 77-5 at lunch as the hosts' pacemen found more seam deviation than in any other opening session of a Test this summer.
Elgar (12) did not make the most of the reprieve from Robinson's no-ball, out two runs later after snicking Broad to slip in the 13th over, before Keegan Petersen (21) did the same thing in Broad's next over.
Anderson - playing in his 100th Test match on home soil - had initially struck in the fifth over, nicking off Sarel Erwee (3) via an inside edge to end a nervy and brief innings from the opener.
Robinson, rather than Broad, had taken the new ball with Anderson as he made his first Test appearance since the fifth Ashes clash in Hobart in January having been blighted by a back injury and illness since then.
The Sussex seamer got the ball to move both ways and found the bounce Stokes said he had been picked for, while his average speed in his opening spell was 83mph - his quickest in an England shirt to date.
Robinson's promotion made it the first time in over 12 years that Anderson and Broad have not shared the new ball in a Test they have played together - and perhaps fired up by that demotion, Broad soon made his mark.
Stokes (2-17) then brought himself on for the 22nd over with the Proteas 66-3 and struck with just his third delivery - Aiden Markram (14) top-edging a long hop behind to wicketkeeper Ben Foakes.
The England captain made another breakthrough in his second over, pinning Rassie van der Dussen (16) lbw, before Foakes spilled a sharp chance off left-arm spinner Jack Leach (1-11) that would have removed Kyle Verreynne for three in the final over before the lunch break.
Verreynne overturned a caught-behind dismissal shortly after the restart on 12 with Robinson's delivery shown to have missed his edge by a distance - on-field umpire Chris Gaffaney duped by a noise from somewhere.
It wasn't long before England were back in the wickets - Anderson bagging two in as many balls to remove Simon Harmer (2), who had been recalled in place of towering seamer Marco Jansen, and Keshav Maharaj (0) lbw.
Verreynne (21) snicked Broad behind just over an hour into the second session, before Robinson ended the Nortje-Rabada alliance and Leach polished off the innings by having top-scorer Rabada pouched at slip.
A full-blown England collapse looked possible once Lees snicked an Ngidi ripsnorter, Pope inside edged Nortje onto his poles and Root was caught off Rabada by Erwee after a juggle in the slip cordon but Crawley and Bairstow halted the slide with contrasting innings.
England seamer Stuart Broad, speaking to Sky Sports: "We are really happy. It was one of those good tosses to lose. We were quite keen to bowl with the overhead conditions but I don't think any of our bowlers expected it to nip as much as it did in the first session, particularly with the new ball.
"Jonny and Creepy (Crawley) saw out the day and now we are in a very strong position. It looked at one stage like South Africa could have picked up five wickets this evening when Rabada and Nortje looked in very good rhythm but we are very happy with that day.
"If we have a good day tomorrow we will be in the driving seat. There is definitely a feeling on this pitch that while there might be little periods where it goes slow and flat there is a wicket-taking ball in there."
England bowler James Anderson: "The way Zak played allowed Jonny to play his natural game. I thought it was a brilliantly intelligent innings from him. His output has not been as good as he'd want it to be but today he read the situation brilliantly and played exactly how we needed him to."
Watch day two of the second LV= Insurance Test between England and South Africa, from Emirates Old Trafford, live on Sky Sports The Hundred on Friday. Build-up starts at 10.15am ahead of the first ball at 11am.
