Stewart and Thorpe hit their stride

Cricket

MARTIN JOHNSON

reports from Bloemfontein

England 316-4 dec Orange Free State 36-0

All those years of sporting isolation have clearly left South Africa in urgent need of re-educating their cricketing public, and the electronic scoreboard here subtly led yesterday's spectators through some of the more complex intricacies of the game.

"Great Shot!", it flashed, when someone played a great shot, and "That's Four Runs!" it blazed, when someone scored four runs. Happily for England, these crucial pieces of information were relayed with some regularity yesterday, after a depressing previous week when the only electrifying aspect of this tour had come from bolts of lightning.

However, while centuries from Alec Stewart and Graham Thorpe were therapeutic enough, neither of them will find many pitches more accommodating than this one, nor an attack for whom the description undemanding would sail dangerously close to flattery.

The home team have recently changed their name from Orange Free State to Goodyear Free State, which will doubtless lead to Roses matches between Kelloggs Yorkshire and Tesco Lancashire when our own marketing men cotton on to the possibilities. Yesterday, though, without Allan Donald and Franklyn Stephenson, the Goodyear team were operating on a set of bald tyres.

On the other hand, England did well to give the pre-Test trial their full attention in an almost total lack of atmosphere. Here in the heart of Afrikaaner country - where anyone trying to change the name of the ground from Springbok Park to Protea Pastures will get very short shrift - rugby is the major game, and 31 years without a visit from the England cricket team has not brought Bloemfontein to the brink of fever pitch.

The unluckiest batsman yesterday was the captain, Michael Atherton, who was caught in the gully without scoring, fending off a nasty lifter from Nico Pretorius. Thereafter, the only risk involved in facing Pretorius was in getting over-excited.

Mark Ramprakash was England's other failure, chopping a wide delivery on to his stumps after scratching out 15 runs in 20 overs, and his place in next week's second Test match remains very much under threat. It might have been even more so had Atherton not declared when John Crawley was going well towards the end of the day.

The opportunities to get out to a wide delivery yesterday were certainly plentiful, but Stewart and Thorpe are so strong square of the wicket that the fielders at cover point and square leg were lucky to get off the field without sustaining nasty injuries.

Stewart hit 21 fours off 182 balls in his 35th first-class century, although his average of a three-figure score every 15 innings or so is not a great return for a player of his ability. Atherton, by contrast, has scored the same number of centuries in around 150 less innings.

Stewart, though, scored his runs a good bit more quickly than Thorpe, who kept pinching the strike off his Surrey team-mate. Stewart, having volunteered unsuccessfully to retire and give someone else a bat after reaching three figures, finally gave it away slogging at the left-arm spinner Nicky Boje, lbw on the back leg.

Boje contributed most of the 43 overs of spin orchestrated by the Free State and South African captain, Hansie Cronje, which made sure (purely coincidentally, no doubt) that England's pre-Test batting practice was something other than a replica of what is expected in Johannesburg.

Robin Smith fell, as he did in the match at Kimberley, to an uncontrolled leg glance to the wicketkeeper, but Thorpe was still there on 131 (262 balls, 20 fours) when Atherton decided to give the Free State half an hour's batting before the close.

This, as it happens, did rather less for the side's confidence than what had gone on earlier. Devon Malcolm had not bowled for 12 days since the match at Kimberley, since when he has clearly not lost the ability to bring a serious glower to the face of Raymond Illingworth.

As Malcolm - bowling everywhere other than at the stumps - gave away 19 runs off four scattergun overs, the manager got up from his seat, glanced into the adjacent press box, and proferred one of his "care to swap jobs?" expressions.

(First day of three; England won toss)

ENGLAND - First Innings

*M A Atherton c Wilkinson b Pretorius 0

A J Stewart lbw b Boje 110

M R Ramprakash b Craven 15

G P Thorpe not out 131

R A Smith c Radley b Bakkes 27

J P Crawley not out 28

Extras (lb2, w2, nb1) 5

Total (for 4, 97.5 overs) 316

Fall: 1-4, 2-45, 3-186, 4-240.

Did not bat: D G Cork, M C Ilott, R K Illingworth, P J Martin, D E Malcolm.

Bowling: Pretorius 17-3-79-1; Bakkes 16-3-42-1; Boje 34.5-14-91-1; Craven 15-5-51-1; Cronje 6-0-31-0; Venter 9-1-20-0.

Orange Free State - First Innings

D Jordaan not out 20

G F J Liebenberg not out 12

Extras (lb4) 4

Total (for 0, 7 overs) 36

To bat: *W J Cronje, L J Wilkinson, J F Venter, H H Dippenaar, C F Craven, N Boje, H C Bakkes, P J L Radley, N W Pretorius.

Bowling: Malcolm 4-0-19-0; Ilott 3-0-13-0.