Date-stamped : 09 Mar94 - 18:23 South Africa v England, Test 2 Played at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 5, 6, 7, 9 Aug 65 ====> Day 1, 5 Aus 65 Pollock Touches the Heights An innings was played here today by Graeme Pollock which in point of style and power, of ease and beauty of execution, is fit to rank with anything in the annals of the game. Pollock came in when, after 50 anxious minutes, South Africa's score stood at 16 for 2. Between this point and lunch he batted easily and without inhibition or restraint while two more wickets fell, and his companions struggled in every sort of difficulty against some very good swing bowling by Cartwright. When the afternoon began the scoreboard showed 76 for 4, Pollock 34. An hour and 10 minutes later it said 178 for 6, and Pollock was walking back with 125 to his name, and the crowd standing in salute to a glorious piece of batting. In cold fact this young man of 21 had made then 125 out of 162 in 2 hours and 20 minutes, and in the 70 minutes since lunch 91 out of 102. In his whole innings were 21 fours, and the two of these that came off the edge from Cartwright's bowling were the only false strokes of any kind that I saw. The other 19 were either hit with a full, easy swing of the bat, or glanced or cut to every point of the compass. No one could find any way of containing him because (like E. R. Dexter, G. Sobers, and R. Kanhai, perhaps alone among modern players) he uses every stroke. It may perhaps be said by anyone trying to evaluate this innings that to have deserved the label of greatness it would have needed to be confronted by bowling of a higher quality than much that was seen. Well, when South Africa were at their worst pass, at 43 for 4, with Bland just gone, he made three strokes to the cover boundary inside a few minutes, two off Cartwright and one off Titmus, and all three from balls that would have looked a good length to anyone else, with a precision of timing and consequent speed over the field that had everyone gasping. With these strokes the moral balance shifted dramatically, and South Africa must have begun to see the vision of recovery so long as their young hero could stay. It may be that after lunch as his assault reached its climax the bowling began to look somewhat ragged. That was Pollock's due reward. Pollock has been spoken of in the same breath as Frank Woolley: there is no one who holds Woolley in greater esteem than myself, and I believe that he would have been proud, at his best, to have played as well as Pollock did this afternoon. Indeed, in the left-handedness, in the height and reach, and in the clean-cut simplicity of his striking of the ball, the comparison with Woolley is the obvious one that applies. And if any young cricketer asks how the very best of the pre-war players batted he could be safely told: "Just like Graeme Pollock did against England at Trent Bridge." All that followed Pollock was, inevitably, anti-climax, but van der Merwe and Dumbrill both batted well enough against an attack that was still shaken from the buffeting it had received. Indeed it was only by a run-out that England broke the next stand, Dumbrill and his captain getting in a rare muddle, and Smith backing up quickly at the bowler's end, and finally hitting the wicket from short range. The last four wickets, post-Pollock and thanks to him, added 91 in a couple of hours to give South Africa in the end a respectable score. When England went in Peter Pollock bowled fast (though for some strange reason into a strong cross wind) and the light was dull. Boycott succumbed to the second ball, caught at second slip by Lance who only held on to the ball by doubling up. In Pollock's next over Barrington played on hard, whereupon Titmus was called upon to last the remaining 20 minutes. He survived with Barber, but with one brother underlining the recovery made by the other it was, all in all, a wonderfully good day which ended with our visitors undeniably on top. (Thanks : "As I said at the Time", E.W.Swanton, Collins, 1983) Contributed by murari (venka@*me.utexas.edu)