Harmison Roars Back for England to Give Pietersen a Dream Start

The England bowlers collective, led by a rejuvenated Steve Harmison, gave Kevin Pietersen the sort of start to his reign as captain for which two days ago he would have traded all his tattoos and his earring. Well, maybe not the earring. A lost toss and the concession of an opening stand of 56 proved no barrier for England as South Africa folded after lunch, as if at an origami convention, against Harmison's pace and the controlled swing, in and out, of Jimmy Anderson to be all out in the final session for 194.

It was an upbeat performance from the bowlers, leaving Pietersen purring. If Harmison, generating pace into the early 90 miles per hour and gaining awkward lift from a pitch with a little more matted grass than usual, deserved better than his two wickets from successive deliveries and Stuart Broad fewer than his two, then there was a nice team feel to it. Searching for someone other than himself to lead the side from the field, Pietersen opted to send all of them ahead, with self-congratulations all round.

It did, however, leave England a testing hour and a quarter to negotiate to the close, and they lost Andrew Strauss for six, fencing at a ball from Makhaya Ntini that angled across him and edging to first slip. But by the close Alastair Cook and Ian Bell, both playing with great confidence, had taken the score to 49 with the best batting of the day.

For a man under the microscope Pietersen, his every move noted and analyzed, had a profitable day, doing all the captainy things he might have imagined himself doing. Bowling changes appeared to work, field placings were thoughtful without being over-elaborate and to some extent he appeared to give his bowlers free rein to set their own. He even abandoned the team huddle. Unquestionably, though, he will have tougher days when decision making will be harder and less productive. The new broom cleared a few cobwebs away.

The return of Harmison was either a triumph of timing or an earlier missed opportunity for in the course of 18 overs yesterday, including a remarkable first over of the match, he gave notice as to why it has been in England's interest to rehabilitate him. At his best, which at times he approached yesterday, bowling first from the Vauxhall end and then the Pavilion, there is none better.

There is also the residual effect on the other bowlers to consider. Anderson, sharing the new ball with Harmison, may have been at the wrong end initially, but made his mark later from the Vauxhall end when the ball had been given a conker polish and swung wickedly at times.

For Andrew Flintoff it represented a return for his mate, a sufficiently close one to swap a bowling boot on the field when one of his own failed. Greater love and all that. Only Broad suffered, especially at the hands of Hashim Amla who in a brief cameo hit him for five boundaries in 10 deliveries as the young man strained for pace that he does not yet possess and over pitched as a result. But he came back strongly towards the end, collecting his brace of wickets and beating the bat with such monotonous regularity that the breeze generated by Ntini's swishing blade in particular could have been harnessed to power a small town.

Did Pietersen go to bed on the eve of the match dreaming of a perfect start? Be careful what you wish for. Between them he and Harmison almost pulled it off, the first ball of the game short of a length and going across the left-handed Graeme Smith, who dabbed at it instinctively and sent it at head height to gully where Cook dropped the chance. It was the start of a feisty over.

One delivery careered off the inside edge of Smith's bat and into his groin so fiercely that the television Hot spot looked like a nuclear reactor going critical. The final ball of the over, 10 minutes after the first, careered past the batsman, continuing its climb until it burst over the top of Tim Ambrose's flailing glove to give him the fattest of lips.

In fact before Flintoff interjected shortly before lunch to take the first wicket of Neil McKenzie, the opening partnership had survived largely through a mixture of good fortune and tenacity. The afternoon was all England's, though, and it was Harmison who set things rolling with the wicket of the South African captain, caught at long-leg by Anderson as he lost control of a hook, to be followed next ball by a full delivery, timed at 93mph, which ripped through Amla's groping shot and tore out the middle stump. When Anderson, in the next over, bamboozled Jaques Kallis with his in swing variation to have him lbw, three wickets had fallen in two overs and the day been turned on its head.

Twice more Anderson was to strike, inducing a rare lackadaisical shot from Ashwell Prince who drove tamely to point, and turning Mark Boucher inside out with his sharp away swing, Ambrose completing the catch. When Pietersen brought Monty Panesar on to bowl the habitual last over of the session, and gained the wicket of AB deVilliers as a result, it was clearly intended to be his day.